Colorado Activates Crisis Standards of Care for Emergency Medical Services Amid COVID-19 Surge, Staffing Shortages
Dr. Eric France, chief medical officer at the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, reactivated crisis standards of care for emergency medical services on Friday (Jan. 7) for the first time since April 2020 as hospital resources have become strained under a surge of COVID-19 patients.
“With increasing demands on hospitals and EMS, we need to make sure we can provide care to anyone who needs it immediately. Crisis standards of care help us to do that,” CDHE said in a press release.
Under the new standards, only individuals with the “most severe” cases of COVID-19 should be transported for medical treatment.
Several factors can disqualify individuals with COVID-19 from being transported for emergency medical treatment, including the absence of high-risk medical history, oxygen saturation above 90%, and being under 60 years of age, according to CDHE crisis standards of care.
Additionally, the standards recommend EMS staff not transport COVID-19 patients who are in continuous cardiac arrest.
Eastern Kansas County Declares COVID-19 Emergency After Hospital Runs Out of Ventilators
An eastern Kansas County has declared an emergency after the local hospital ran out of ventilators while treating patients with COVID-19.
The Lyon County Board of County Commissioners in Emporia, Kansas, announced Friday (Jan. 7) that they were declaring a local emergency after the local hospital, Newman Regional Health, asked for two additional ventilators. An emergency had to be declared to order this “critical resource” from the state’s Emergency Operations Center.
The announcement came a day after Governor Laura Kelly issued a new disaster declaration, suspending a series of rules and regulations to help Kansas health care facilities respond more rapidly as COVID-19 patients threaten to overwhelm hospitals struggling with staffing shortages.