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We are dealing with a crisis that perhaps has never been experienced before - one that is crippling our economy, scaring our communities and shaking the foundation of the American Healthcare System to its core. Here is an update on our status at Cape Cod Healthcare (CCHC): · Our triage efforts at our emergency care departments, in our ambulatory environment and at our urgent care sites are working. All patient visits across the board at CCHC are down by an average of 52%. · Our cancellation of all elective surgical cases and procedures has helped protect our workforce and our critical supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE). · We continue to have a very restrictive visitation policy. · We have authorized the use of masks for every person within a hospital setting and/or those having direct contact with patients. · We continue to work hard to stockpile PPE and are well positioned with necessary supplies including isolation gowns, surgical masks, gloves and plastic shields. We, along with the Governor and the federal government, continue to look for N95 masks or the equivalent of them. · We continue to lead our region in planning efforts. We are in the process of working with the State to set up two (2) skilled nursing facilities for COVID-19 patients who are able to leave an ambulatory setting but are still too sick to go home. We will have these sites operational within the next ten (10) days. · We have expanded our critical care capacities at each hospital and have expanded our beds on each campus—Cape Cod Hospital: 72 ICU beds; Falmouth Hospital: 45 ICU beds. · We have over 80 ventilators within the CCHC healthcare system. · We have established an internal surge plan for CCHC hospitals that will allow us to expand to 500 total inpatient beds. · We have established a surge plan with our physicians that will allow us to cover 500 hospital beds and still keep our ambulatory footprint intact. · We continue to operate a drive-through testing site; which is managing roughly 100 tests per day. · We have established a COVID-19 hotline for those needing to be triaged without a Primary Care Provider (PCP). · We have worked closely with a local hotel to house those who are homeless and need to be quarantined. · We continue to work closely and coordinate daily with Barnstable County, and local fire, police, town and legislative leadership. · We continue to pay all employees and have not asked anyone to use vacation time when not needed due to low patient census. · We continue to keep our Cape Cod community at the forefront of all we do. · We continue to be a trusted source of information for our community with 287,619 page views of COVID-19 content we published on our web site and Cape Cod Health News. https://www.capecodhealth.org/ Please see below for the latest data on the COVID-19 pandemic on Cape Cod: Total Tested: 1777 Total Positives: 243 Total Negatives: 1533 Percent Positive: 13.7% Inpatients: CCH FH ICU: 5 7 Floors: 11 10 Pending 14 7 I could continue to list the many incredible efforts I have and continue to observe across this healthcare system. But please keep mind, all of these activities have been put in place to better prepare us for the surge of COVID-19 patients we know will be coming over the upcoming days and weeks. We must continue to do everything necessary now to remain at the forefront of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this virus. We will continue to do anything we can to protect you. The weeks ahead are going to be challenging in every way. We will continue to do our best to keep you informed and updated throughout this process. In the meantime, please continue to visit our Cape Cod Healthcare coronavirus website: www.capecodhealth.org/coronavirus. Thank you for all you are doing to provide the best possible care for our patients. Keep up the great work. And understand the fight has just begun. Most importantly, I wish you, your families and loved one’s safety and health. Sincerely, Mike Michael K. Lauf President and CEO, Cape Cod Healthcare