Commonground
Senior Moderator
By Kyle Cheney
Sun Oct 25, 2009, 01:04 PM EDT
Massachusetts hospitals overwhelmed by incoming flu patients will be able to waive procedural steps to open new, temporary facilities under rules implemented Saturday when President Obama declared a state of emergency.
?If they needed to set up an additional location to screen patients with H1N1 symptoms outside of the emergency room setting, this would allow them to do that without having to go through the additional procedures,? Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said in a phone interview. ?There are certain facilities licensed for a certain number of beds. This would give them some flexibility.?
Auerbach emphasized that any facility seeking to expand or waive regulations would still be subject to a state and federal review, but without a state of emergency, he said, such waivers wouldn?t be possible at all.
According to the latest Department of Public Health statistics, 1,436 cases of swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, have been confirmed in Massachusetts since April. Auerbach said Obama?s emergency declaration was a reaction to a noticeable uptick in ?illness related to H1N1.?
Forty-six states, including Massachusetts, have reported ?widespread? flu-like activity, as swine flu continues to spread and the annual seasonal flu begins to take hold, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/cohasset...reads-hospitals-may-see-legal-barriers-lifted
Sun Oct 25, 2009, 01:04 PM EDT
Massachusetts hospitals overwhelmed by incoming flu patients will be able to waive procedural steps to open new, temporary facilities under rules implemented Saturday when President Obama declared a state of emergency.
?If they needed to set up an additional location to screen patients with H1N1 symptoms outside of the emergency room setting, this would allow them to do that without having to go through the additional procedures,? Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said in a phone interview. ?There are certain facilities licensed for a certain number of beds. This would give them some flexibility.?
Auerbach emphasized that any facility seeking to expand or waive regulations would still be subject to a state and federal review, but without a state of emergency, he said, such waivers wouldn?t be possible at all.
According to the latest Department of Public Health statistics, 1,436 cases of swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, have been confirmed in Massachusetts since April. Auerbach said Obama?s emergency declaration was a reaction to a noticeable uptick in ?illness related to H1N1.?
Forty-six states, including Massachusetts, have reported ?widespread? flu-like activity, as swine flu continues to spread and the annual seasonal flu begins to take hold, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/cohasset...reads-hospitals-may-see-legal-barriers-lifted