DCH Coronavirus Update 11-20-20

HUSH Curtains® – Post-Anesthesia Care Unit

Thanks to Dana Murphy’s foresight and the generous DCH Foundation donors to the patient impact grant, the seven open patient recovery bays within the DCH Regional Medical Center PACU will be equipped with new HUSH Curtains® in the coming weeks. The care of her patients motivated Murphy, PACU manager, to apply for the grant.

“It is a great opportunity for us to increase HIPAA privacy for our patients,” Murphy said. “We are an open unit and do have to ask some sensitive questions. By having the HUSH Curtains installed, it will help muffle and decrease the transmission of sound from one patient bay to the next, so it’s going to be a great safety/privacy factor for our patients.”

These curtains will help on average 30 patients per day or more than 7,500 patients annually. HUSH Curtains reduce noise, which improves communication and privacy between caregiver and patient. The curtains are compatible with the existing cubicle curtain track system in the bays.

“Without the grant, we would not be able to purchase these curtains for this department, so this is providing a service that would otherwise have been unavailable to us. We are very appreciative of this gift,” Murphy said.

Remote Site Testing Holiday Hours

DCH’s COVID-19 screening and testing service at its remote site in the Laundry Lot just west of DCH Regional Medical Center will be closed next Friday (November 27) for the Thanksgiving holiday. The following week the site will be back to its regular hours, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 8 a.m.–Noon.

North Harbor Pavilion Temporary Visitation Restriction

Due to the results of COVID-19 testing, North Harbor Pavilion (DCH’s psychiatric treatment facility) is suspending visitation until further notice. To protect patient privacy, DCH has established a minimum threshold of five for reporting numbers of inpatients with laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19. Five or fewer North Harbor Patients are positive for COVID-19.

Testing and Confirmed Cases

To protect patient privacy, DCH has established a minimum threshold of five for reporting numbers of inpatients with laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.

DCH internal counts as of 4:00 p.m. on 11/20/20:

• 61 inpatients are positive for COVID-19.
• 18 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are being treated in the ICU.
• 5 or fewer who are positive for COVID-19 are on ventilators.
• 9 who are positive for COVID-19 are on a BiPAP.
• 4,231 (cumulative) unique positives for COVID-19 tests including results from the ED, triage tent and inpatient. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 28,116 (cumulative) unique negatives for COVID-19 at DCH sites.
• 5,323 (cumulative) positive COVID-19 at DCH sites. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 45,146 (cumulative) negative tests at DCH sites.
• 1,350 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have been discharged.
• 252 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have died at DCH. This is not an indication of the cause of death, only that the individuals were positive for COVID-19 at the time of death.
• 117 Tuscaloosa County residents (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have died (per the Alabama Department of Public Health).