The following has been sent on behalf of Elin Bjarnason- Vice President of Clinical Service Delivery and Dr. Ben Williams-Interim Vice President of Medicine, Quality and Academic Affairs.
As part of our response to managing the Covid-19 pandemic, we are working together on a regional strategy to manage suspect or confirmed Covid-19 patients who require admission to our local and tertiary acute care and critical care units. As part of this process, a key strategy is determining when they would require transfer to a higher level of care Covid-19 cohort unit.
We support cohorting of Covid-19 positive patients who have a code status of C1 and C2 and need increased medical and respiratory intervention at two of our tertiary centres: Nanaimo Regional Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital. Key Point: All physicians need to call Patient Transfer Network (PTN) for these higher level of care transfers, as a conference between sending and receiving physician and our Covid Medical Lead will occur to ensure the higher level of care is facilitated to the appropriate facility as required.
This is a rapidly evolving situation with many interdependencies including the number of patients being admitted and availability of medical transport. These decisions will re-evaluated on an ongoing basis.
If you have any questions in regards to this process, please feel to connect with the Acute Flow and Utilization Team: Manpreet Khaira or Matthew Erickson.
Please click here for COVID-19 HLOC Transport and Cohort Procedure, it highlights an overarching guideline to apply when considering a potential transfer for Covid-19 patient to the cohort site.