With a first case of the Ebola virus diagnosed in the U.S., several Chicago-area hospitals Wednesday were on increased alert for the possibility of the disease appearing here — and said they are fully prepared if it does.
Northwestern Medicine was already tracking the disease’s progress in West Africa and using guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be ready, said Dr. Maureen Bolon, medical director of hospital epidemiology and infection prevention.
University of Chicago Medicine responded swiftly to news that a man who had flown from Liberia to Dallas had been diagnosed with the virus there, said Dr. Emily Landon, the hospital’s epidemiologist.
The University of Illinois Hospitals and Health Sciences System sent out an alert reminding clinicians of the importance of asking patients if they have traveled internationally, and of taking swift action.
The hospital has sent out previous notices, and has detailed protocols in place to deal with Ebola. But the reports that the Ebola patient in Dallas had initially been sent home from the emergency room even though he told a nurse that he had recently been in an Ebola-affected area prompted the hospital to issue a reminder.
“It just re-emphasized the need for communication,” said Dr. Susan Bleasdale, medical director for infection control. “There has been enough media coverage on this that … everyone here is on high alert.”
Infectious disease specialists had expected someone to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., said Dr. Jorge Parada, the medical director of the infection prevention and control program at Loyola Medicine.
“We had a very developed 20-plus-page (response plan) nearly two months ago,” he said, one that continues to evolve with the changing circumstances.
The hospital is packaging protective gear into kits and storing the kits in emergency room and designated isolation areas. It has given scripts to follow to various personnel, including nonmedical greeters, to learn a patient’s recent travel history. And the emergency room is outfitted with signs with large bold letters reading, “Please tell us if you have a fever and if you have traveled outside the U.S. in the last three weeks.”
If the University of Illinois Hospital finds itself caring for an Ebola patient, said Bleasdale, it will have health care workers use a buddy system and check one another to make sure they are completely protected by fluid-impervious gowns, face masks, goggles and gloves — and not only when putting them on but when removing them.
“The taking off of the equipment when you may have contaminated it is really important,” she said.
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At the University of Chicago, “We’re ready to set up a quarantine area in one of our intensive care units with physical barriers to decrease traffic, 24-hour infection control supervision and very high-level personal protective suits,” Landon said.
And though the risk to health care workers is nothing like that in Africa, she said, the hospital gave considerable thought to how to decide who should treat an Ebola patient.
“We actually asked our ethics team the best way to identify staff to care for people,” she said. “They made the recommendation that we use volunteers.”
The hospital asked for volunteers and got them. Those doctors, nurses and staffers are being trained to do medical tasks such as inserting IVs while wearing the cumbersome protective gear, said Landon.
And the hospital will isolate a patient at the first indication that he or she might have the Ebola virus.
“We can always undo it if it turns out to be nothing,” Landon said, “but if it turns out the patient is sick, we can’t make up for what we let go.”