The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 76 COVID patients today. Other significant numbers:
- 51 with the active virus today
- 9 in ICU
- 3 on a ventilator
Key points from today’s guests:
Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer, The University of Kansas Health System
- A few years ago we didn't have any anybody in a hospital like this and now, 10 to 15 percent of our hospital beds are taken up by one disease entity (COVID), and the concern is around surges that impact beds and staffing.
- Surprised by the paranoia and the reliance on the internet as a source of truth versus the scientific and medical experts dedicated to saving lives every day.
- Usually a great crisis brings people together, but we've allowed COVID to split us apart, which just made it harder to take care of every patient with a heart attack or stroke or cancer or anything else.
- Our next big goal has to be to pull ourselves back together. But to do that, we have to believe in reliable, honest sources of information from people who really work in a field and do things every day to try and make it better.
Dr. Mark Steele, executive chief clinical officer, University Health Truman
- Has seen a significant increase in COVID test positivity rate last week around 12 percent and this week as high as 18 percent.
- We also have seen an uptick in our employees’ infections. Particularly we saw a big increase following the Thanksgiving holiday. We've continued to see higher numbers throughout the month of December, and it'll be interesting to see what happens after the Christmas and New Year's holiday.
- Certainly we have seen the impact of long COVID and some of the mental status changes -- even within our practitioners or employees, some people who have been very significantly impacted by this. So for those who are impacted, it's a very significant thing.
Dr. Jennifer Schrimsher, infectious diseases, LMH Health/Public Health Officer, Douglas County
- We have had a problem as everyone else with just not enough beds or not enough available staffed beds.
- I think there is under counting on the COVID heat map.
- The other thing is we're still seeing deaths. We had two deaths in December and it's a reminder to folks that COVID is still here. It still kills people and you still need to get vaccinated.
- We’ve seen a rise in flu over last year because last year we wore masks – and masks do work. We were also not in as crowded as spaces, so there wasn't as much as much transmission.
Dr. Edward Kammerer, chief medical officer, Mosaic
- We continue to smolder along with COVID and that's a disturbing trend that we continue to see.
- We're experiencing the same bed capacity issue other places are experiencing and I think this is the new norm.
- We're all going to have x amount of people inside of our hospitals now every day with COVID and it's not seasonal, it's chronic.
- When long COVID was first proposed, everybody kind of thought that might be rubbish, but in reality, it certainly does seem to exist.
Dr. Heather Harris, medical director, HaysMed
- People who were unvaccinated from flu are sicker patients, so I'm really stressing the flu vaccine. We usually have another wave later -- early spring or later winter.
- We’re also stressing early detection of COVID for elderly patients so we can get them the right medication quickly.
Dr. Kevin Dishman, chief medical officer, Stormont Vail Health
- We're all starting to use that word “chronic”, which I think we're hearing both from our colleagues there at academic centers and also across the state and now nationally, that that the chronicity of this disease is going to be a challenge going forward.
- I think that we're having to focus very appropriately on things that we did not necessarily focus on in the past -- addressing diversity in all the communities and all the populations that that we serve and ensuring that we're meeting the needs of every member of our community.
- Whether we're talking about an underserved community, whether we're talking about an impoverished community, whether we're talking about people who serve in the military, whatever dimension of our community, we're talking about ensuring that we're addressing the needs of every member of our society is going to be critically important going forward if we're going to tackle not only the chronicity of the COVID virus, but to address the needs of all medical care in our country.
Dr. Lisa Hays, chief medical officer, Advent Health Shawnee Mission
- Our ongoing issue remains nursing staffing and our bed availability.
- Yesterday, we had seven employees out and that actually is down and probably will go right back up today.
- As far as our total numbers, we're at about a fourth of where we were in our peak last year with Omicron, but this is definitely the highest number of COVID patients we've had in the hospital since March when we hit zero at one point.
- Ongoing research is necessary to really understand the long term effects of this virus particularly.
- We need to be most concerned about the respiratory acute effects of an infection -- those are much more concerning and much worse of an outcome than any side effects that I have seen from the vaccine or any vaccine side effects that have been reported.
- The most surprising to me during this pandemic has been the lack of trust in our scientific experts. We trust experts in every other medical disease -- whether it's diabetes cardiology, primary care, pediatrics, OB -- but for some reason, we have the scientific mistrust of our infectious disease experts and our vaccine experts.
Dr. Richard Watson, co-founder, Motient
- Motient is a software that tracks transports throughout the state, and it follows the movement of the patients from the outline facilities to the metro.
- During the holidays, we saw increases and that produces complications for staffing – our referral centers don’t have the ability to move patients out of rural areas.
- This can significantly change the landscape of healthcare in our state,
- From the standpoint of just having a population that's less healthy than we have been in the past -- less activity, diet, a resurgence in smoking and alcohol use -- we're really seeing a population that's not resilient against disease.
- COVID was an exclamation point on the end of that and until we really take health seriously in this country, we're going to have some real problems with ongoing chronic disease.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, director of infection control and prevention, The University of Kansas Health System
- COVID numbers are up significantly at the Health System compared to before the holidays.
- Fortunately, RSV and flu cases have decreased.
- For COVID, we know that there has been lower booster uptake, so that will not provide as much protection against hospitalization.
- We are still dealing with essentially the same virus, but it's really about getting those people protected -- making sure they're up to date with our boosters, getting them tested early and getting them Paxlovid little bit earlier to help reduce that risk of hospitalization.
- The overwhelming vast majority of the data continues to support the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine and getting the vaccine reduces your risk of potential complications, hospitalizations and death by far more than getting the infection itself.
The next live episode of the Morning Medical Update is Friday, January 6. We’ll share the story of a young pregnant mom who dropped to the floor, having a stroke. You’ll meet Leslie Pratt and the extensive team that worked minute to minute to keep her and her baby safe until time to deliver.
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