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Feds plan national tiered hospital system to handle Ebola
http://www.thestate.com/2014/10/22/3761138_feds-plan-national-tiered-hospital.html?&rh=1
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hoping to avoid past mistakes in the treatment of Ebola patients in Texas, federal health officials are considering a plan to designate top-tier hospitals as referral centers for the treatment of potential Ebola cases.
That would limit the number of health-care workers who must become expert at taking care of patients with the highly contagious and often deadly disease. Other hospitals would still need to be prepared to identify potential Ebola patients for transfer to the appropriate hospitals for treatment.
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Top-tier hospitals, which would accept known Ebola patients for treatment, would be designated after a “quasi-certification process” that would involve official site visits, Engel said. “That is the best we can do ahead of testing it with a real Ebola patient,” Engel said.
For the top tier, Engel said, “We need hospitals with robust bottom lines. They’re not going to get reimbursed for any of this. They’re not going to able to bill the patient’s insurance for the ‘buddy system’ and all the personal protective equipment they’re going to need.”
Second-tier hospitals would be located around the five major airports where most West Africans arrive in this country – New York City, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, DC.
Those second-tier hospitals would be “ready to take a person directly from the airport and triage them safely” before transferring them to a first-tier hospital, Engel said. These second-tier hospitals would have trained ER staff, isolations rooms and testing facilities “so these people could be tested and isoated quickly.”
The third tier would be “every other hospital in the United States,” and they would need to have “basic triage readiness” to identify a potential Ebola patient and isolate them until they could be transferred. “These folks would be screeners, testers and transporters. Really a 1-2-3 process.”
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http://www.thestate.com/2014/10/22/3761138_feds-plan-national-tiered-hospital.html?&rh=1
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hoping to avoid past mistakes in the treatment of Ebola patients in Texas, federal health officials are considering a plan to designate top-tier hospitals as referral centers for the treatment of potential Ebola cases.
That would limit the number of health-care workers who must become expert at taking care of patients with the highly contagious and often deadly disease. Other hospitals would still need to be prepared to identify potential Ebola patients for transfer to the appropriate hospitals for treatment.
...
Top-tier hospitals, which would accept known Ebola patients for treatment, would be designated after a “quasi-certification process” that would involve official site visits, Engel said. “That is the best we can do ahead of testing it with a real Ebola patient,” Engel said.
For the top tier, Engel said, “We need hospitals with robust bottom lines. They’re not going to get reimbursed for any of this. They’re not going to able to bill the patient’s insurance for the ‘buddy system’ and all the personal protective equipment they’re going to need.”
Second-tier hospitals would be located around the five major airports where most West Africans arrive in this country – New York City, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, DC.
Those second-tier hospitals would be “ready to take a person directly from the airport and triage them safely” before transferring them to a first-tier hospital, Engel said. These second-tier hospitals would have trained ER staff, isolations rooms and testing facilities “so these people could be tested and isoated quickly.”
The third tier would be “every other hospital in the United States,” and they would need to have “basic triage readiness” to identify a potential Ebola patient and isolate them until they could be transferred. “These folks would be screeners, testers and transporters. Really a 1-2-3 process.”
....