Charlotte hospital officials say they’re prepared if Ebola strikes

After news that the first Ebola case was diagnosed in the United States this week, Charlotte hospital officials are reassuring the public that they’re prepared in the event that an infected patient should arrive in the area.

“We are ready if it happens,” said Dr. Katie Passaretti, medical director for infection prevention at Carolinas HealthCare System.

Carolinas Medical Center, the system’s largest hospital, had a test run in July when a patient who had traveled from West Africa arrived in the emergency department with a fever. Because the Ebola outbreak was on their radar, hospital staffers roped off a portion of the emergency room and placed the patient in isolation for about seven hours until they concluded the patient was not infected with the often-deadly Ebola virus.

Since then, Passaretti said she’s been contacted by ER staff about 10 times to discuss other patients who met the system’s broad basic criteria for suspicion – fever and travel in Africa in the past 30 days. After further review, all were quickly ruled out as Ebola risks. “People are erring on the side of caution,” Passaretti said.

One of those patients was pregnant, and that brought attention to a potential gap in the hospital’s preparedness, Passaretti said. Education had been focused on emergency rooms, urgent care centers and other potential points of entry, but not in obstetrical areas. “It just didn’t come to the forefront,” she said. “So now we’ve addressed that.”

This week, U.S. health officials announced that a man who flew from Liberia to Dallas was infected with the Ebola virus. He is in serious but stable condition at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and has been identified by Liberian government officials as Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Monrovia in his mid-40s. He is the first person to develop symptoms outside Africa during the current epidemic.

In addition to reviewing real cases, Passaretti said Carolinas HealthCare has run drills about hypothetical patients to make sure protocols are working and to identify any gaps. The system has also planned a “patient transport route” in case an infectious patient must be transferred from another hospital to Carolinas Medical Center and from the ER to an isolation room.

Education is focused on reinforcing protocols already in place for infectious disease threats. For example, blood specimens drawn from infectious patients must be hand-delivered to the lab instead of sent through pneumatic tubes in which they could break. Basic infection control practices in U.S. hospitals should be sufficient to protect patients and staff from the spread of Ebola, Passaretti said.

“They just have to be reinforced and monitored. You just need to actually do, religiously, the wearing of gowns and gloves every time you go to the room.”

At Novant Health, the other hospital system in Mecklenburg County, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tom Zweng said he and his colleagues have been closely monitoring the outbreak and reviewing protocols to ensure the staff is prepared in case a potential Ebola patient shows up.

“On a daily basis, across our system, our care providers manage the isolation of patients needing to be treated separately from visitors and other patients,” he said.

Zweng said Novant has provided its emergency room staff with “Ebola isolation packs,” including face masks, gloves and surgical suits, that could be accessed quickly. “We are treating this situation as a potential crisis …, ” he said. “Our team is on high alert even though the risk is low.”

This story was originally published October 1, 2014 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Charlotte hospital officials say they’re prepared if Ebola strikes."