PEMA director discusses possible role for alternative care sites
The creation of alternative care sites – along with other potential moves to help the state grapple with the COVID-19 outbreak – emerged Thursday during a conference call between Randy Padfield, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, and members of the media.
Padfield also noted the difficulty of planning ahead during a pandemic that shifts shapes in unpredictable ways.
“Our crystal ball is cloudy,” he said.
He described the way in which PEMA can contribute during a crisis.
“When the scope of the incident exceeds the municipality’s ability to respond, they request whatever resource they need from the county,” he said. Then, if the county is unable to meet the needs, a request comes to PEMA.
“Those requests can be for anything from personal protective equipment to help in assessing and setting up alternative care sites to any one of a number of things they need to support their operation,” he said.
Padfield noted several factors as he discussed the creation of alternative care sites in preparation for an overflow of patients needing care. He said these sites could accommodate “sub-acute” patients, freeing up space in the hospital system “so they can care for patients who are COVID-19 positive and may require higher levels of care.”
Fayette County Emergency Management Agency Director Roy Shipley Jr. said via email that alternate care facilities are in the planning stages, and that the agency does not currently have more information to report.
Ruth Miller, director of communications for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, said in an emailed statement that PEMA is working “with state, federal and local partners” to assess sites throughout the state for housing and medical uses.
“As those assessments are ongoing and no plans or agreements have been finalized, we do not have information to share, such as specific site locations, at this time,” she said.
Padfield, during Thursday’s press conference, noted some characteristics of potential facilities, including the “number of surge capable beds that we can place in those facilities” along with “other support services and wrap-around services that we may need to be able to essentially make a hospital out of something that either was a hospital at one point in time, or something that we could use for sub-acute care for larger numbers.”
Padfield returned to the concept later in response to a question about hospital care that focused especially on the Philadelphia area, where the case count has been high.
“We’re taking a look at modeling that has been produced by a number of academic institutions to be able to realize what the potential impact would be on the healthcare system,” he said. “There is a process through the Army Corps of Engineers where they can actually take hotels and make them more into a health care setting.”
He noted a timeline for alternative care sites.
“The goal that we have internally here is April 10 to have any of those sites up and operational,” he said. “The biggest challenge that we have with a lot of these sites is going to be manpower, or people available to run them from a health care perspective.”
Padfield also addressed the different sorts of challenges that rural areas may face during the COVID-19 outbreak – though he noted the advantage of the kind of natural “social distancing” that occurs in more sparsely populated places.
“In rural areas, obviously, there is more social distancing that occurs just by nature of geography and less population density,” he said. “But there also are some challenges related to the testing. Just because we have less case counts in those areas, doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s less prevalence of the disease in that area.”
He also stressed, as other officials have, the potential hazards associated with gathering – even in less densely populated areas.
“There is the potential for cluster outbreaks in the future,” he said.