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MISSOULA, Mont. (Missoulian) — In a move to ensure hospital beds remain open as COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Missoula, the Village Health & Rehabilitation, a nursing home in Missoula, said it will admit positive COVID-19 patients as they are discharged from hospitals.
As of Monday, the Village had only accepted one positive patient from the hospital, according to spokeswoman Amy Rotenberg.
“Village Health is taking all precautions necessary for patient safety, and is doing its part to help the community during this very urgent moment of the pandemic,” Rotenberg said in an email.
The Village has 193 total beds, making it one of the largest health care facilities in Missoula, according to a federal database for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It wasn’t immediately clear Monday which hospitals in Montana would send patients to the Village, but Rotenberg shared the process for making admission decisions.
“Village Health was asked to consider taking patients who were positive for COVID-19 into their isolation unit, non-COVID patients (not hospitalized due to COVID and no known COVID history) and patients who were hospitalized with COVID and have since met all CDC criteria for release from isolation,” she said in an email to the Missoulian. “As with any hospital admission, each situation would be reviewed by the interdisciplinary team to determine if the patient can be safely cared for and that all CDC criteria including transmission based precautions can be met.”
Monday, Missoula City-County Health Department Director and Health Officer Ellen Leahy said the move is important for hospitals.
“It is important that COVID patients who need skilled nursing care in a licensed-facility but do not need hospital care not take up hospital capacity,” Leahy said.
As the number of COVID-19 patients increases, Leahy noted that hospital staff and health care workers will likely decrease due to community spread. On Monday, Missoula County reported an additional 255 new COVID-19 cases since its last update on Friday, Nov. 13, bringing the county to a total of 1,076 active cases. The incidence rate also hit 78 cases per 100,000 residents, well above the 25 cases per 100,000 threshold beyond which a locality may tip into uncontrolled spread, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute.
On Monday, Missoula County also reported a total of 36 active hospitalizations, half of which were out-of-county residents.
In the most recent “Hospital occupancy and capacity” report from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services on Nov. 15, Providence St. Patrick Hospital reported 141 of 226 total beds as being occupied, and Community Medical Center said 58 of 139 total beds were occupied.
However, other hospitals across the state are in a more precarious situation. St. Peter’s Health in Helena and St. Vincent Health Care in Billings did not have any open beds as of Nov. 15, when Benefis Hospital in Great Falls reported only one vacant bed.
“We need to keep the hospital capacity for people that require hospital-level care,” Leahy said.
At one point last month, the Village had counted 98 cumulative positive cases among staff and residents, so the facility already has a designated COVID-19 unit for positive patients, the Village confirmed. In response to the case counts in October, Village Executive Director Dee Strauss said earlier the facility was working with state and local health authorities and following all guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize exposure.
A local health officer order in October tightened restrictions at nursing homes to minimize spread, but Leahy said she amended that order so that hospitals could discharge “non-COVID patients, recovering COVID, and if necessary, still isolated COVID patients” to skilled nursing facilities.
Leahy said that nursing homes can accept COVID-19 patients only if isolation is provided, as the Village is already doing in its COVID unit, or the previously positive cases have completed the isolation period required when one is hospitalized. Leahy said skilled nursing facilities, which are federally regulated, are required to follow protocols from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize transmission.
The Missoula City-County Board of Health is meeting virtually Thursday, Nov. 19, to discuss potential changes to the additional restrictions Leahy ordered on Oct. 27 in the county.
“It has become abundantly clear that COVID-19 will likely intensify over the winter, and, because of that, the Board of Health is considering adopting a board rule related to the October 27th Order that could shore up health and safety across the county as we enter into the winter months,” Missoula City-County COVID-19 Incident Commander Cindy Farr said in an email.
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