News

Ebola Task Force ready to take on illness locally

Brian Bethel

12/06/2014

Dec. 06--ABILENE, Texas -- Within the last couple of months, Hendrick Medical Center experienced what Dr. Steve Faehnle dubbed a "no-notice drill," when a family came to the hospital and "appropriate questions" led the hospital to become concerned about Ebola.

"Someone said early on in this event: 'Are you from Africa?'" Faehnle, Hendrick's Chief Medical Officer and Community Ebola Task Force Coordinator, recalled Friday at a news conference of Taylor County's Community Ebola Task Force.

The answer was yes, though the patient was not from the area known as West Africa, where the potentially deadly virus spread after the current global outbreak began in Guinea in 2013.

Still, the hospital "thought enough" about the potential implications, he said, especially because of the nature of the patient's illness, that it started emergency protocols.

"The patient was isolated, the local health department was called per protocol, and the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was called, per protocol," he said. "Everybody answered promptly, and the CDC said: 'Thank you for your call, you may close your protocol.'"

The hospital was already part of the task force, a group of medical professionals Hendrick, Abilene Regional Medical Center, the Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District, Emergency Medical Services, the Abilene Fire Department, and Dyess Air Force Base, he said.

The event underscored why it's important to have such a group in Abilene, Faehnle and others said Friday in the chambers of the Abilene City Council.

"Ebola patients, as they become desperately ill, all require intensive care services," Faehnle said, their symptoms such that they can "overwhelm a community hospital in the United States in terms of equipment, manpower, supplies and treatment availability."

But the task force has proved a vital component in making certain the community, including health care workers, are safe, he said and know what to do.

"I don't think in my career here that I've ever seen as much collaboration on any health issue," Faehnle said. "We usually address these in what is the best interest of the patient as each individual entity sees it. But I think we've learned a lot about communication, we've learned a lot about transparency as a task force. We've shared a lot of information."

So effective has the approach been, there has been consideration, Faehnle said, in opening up the task force to a wider area outside of Taylor County.

"I think it's going to make both of our hospitals better institutions whether or not we see this virus," he said. "And it's also going to, I hope, become a place for us to continue to meet on issues that matter to the whole community and the region."

The Task Force, which first met Oct. 17, was put together at the prompting of Dyess, Faehnle said.

Each entity has had its own formal drills and implementations of procedure, while also working together with the wider group.

Faehnle said that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines provide guiding directives for "what a given hospital or health care entity is to do" in case of a suspected Ebola case.

The task force has agreed that the role of health care facilities in Abilene, he said, is to "assess, stabilize and transport" to higher-level care that a patient needs, based on his or her condition.

The CDC has named 35 hospitals in the United States that will be Ebola treatment facilities, Faehnle said. Texas has two, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Methodist Hospital System in collaboration with Parkland Hospital System and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

"The care of the individual patient is not anything that is outside the skill level of a doctor in a community hospital the size of both of ours," Faehnle said. "Both hospitals have the specialists necessary."

But it is in isolation and equipment protocols where things become "much, much different," he said.

"Because of the high case fatality rate, we have to spend a great deal more time and effort in making sure that everyone does (such protective measures) safely and effectively," Faehnle said.

Tom Kinzeler, director of facilities management and safety officer at Abilene Regional Medical Center, said that "at both hospitals, we've had 20-30 people at a time working on this problem."

"The people that you see up here are the tip of an iceberg," he said. Friday

Dr. Robert Lawson, medical director for Hendrick medical services, the Abilene Fire Department and EMS services, said that local emergency room personnel and first responders have been well-trained as to what to expect in case of a potential outbreak.

"All of our physicians and nursing staff in the (emergency department) are front-line providers, and the ones who will probably be the first ones that come into contact with one of these patients," he said.

And "we have absolutely had our own drills with the EMS folks here in town," he said, with consideration given to items from how to use certain equipment

to more arcane problems, such as how to disinfect and sterilize an ambulance after an Ebola patient.

"There are a lot of things that have to be thought about and thought through that for a normal patient, even a normal very sick patient, don't really come into effect," he said.

"We expect to never see a case -- that is our wish," Faehnle said. "But we are prepared to do battle with this virus at the level that we can and the level that state health officials tell us we must."