TO: All Geography 1 staff and physicians
Island Health’s pandemic response plan to cohort all COVID-19 positive patients at identified acute care cohort locations is as follows:
NORTH ISLAND:
- Comox Valley Hospital (CVH) cohort would be for Geography 1 patients with MOST status of M1-M3 and CO.
- Geography 1 patients with MOST status of C1 and C2 would cohort at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH).
- Campbell River General (CRG) hospital would continue to have COVID-19 pending patients and patients not appropriate for immediate transfer.
CENTRE ISLAND:
- NRGH cohort would receive all COVID-19 positive patients from Geography 2 and MOST status C1/2 patients from Geography 1.
SOUTH ISLAND:
- RJH would receive all COVID-19 positive patient from Geography 3 and 4.
The ONLY EXCEPTION to keep a patient at a local site and not transport to the above designated cohort unit is that the patient will be imminently discharged or an imminent death predicted.
Cohorting COVID-19 patients is best practice and has been shown in other jurisdictions to improve safety to staff, reduce nosocomial transmission and improve clinical outcomes for COVID-19 patients.
On an interim basis, at the direction of the Medical Health Officer, our cohort units will also support caring for COVID-19 positive long term care residents until long term care cohorts are organized in the community. The first long term COVID-19 positive cohort will open at the Summit in South Island on April 24, 2020. Further information on the launch of community LTC cohorts will be provided by Mark Blandford in the near future.
The comprehensive updated Higher Level of Care (HLOC) and Cohort Procedure that reflects Island Health’s pandemic response plan to cohort all COVID-19 positive patients at identified acute care cohort locations can be accessed via the link below:
Higher Level of Care (HLOC) and Cohort Procedure
If there are any questions in regards to this process, please contact:
Manpreet Khaira
Dr. Jennifer Grace
Shelley Gallant
Staying informed:
- Visit Island Health's ‘source of truth,’ COVID-19 WEB PAGE on the Intranet. Transcripts or recordings of the Town Halls will be posted after each event.
- The Medical Staff website has specific information for medical staff.
- Check the BCCDC’s web site for bulletins on emerging respiratory viruses and the most current information, the case definition and instructions on infection control measures for patients who present with symptoms.
- BCCDC is now posting on its website the number of confirmed cases and number of samples tested in BC.
- We are also posting information for the public on our social media channels. We encourage you to follow/retweet/share BCCDC’s and Island Health’s posts.