ORLANDO, Fla. – AdventHealth’s Central Florida facilities have entered a “red status” in response to the climbing number of COVID-19 infections in the region, according to an email sent to AdventHealth employees.
The move means more restrictions in place at hospitals effective immediately, including deferring non-time sensitive elective outpatient surgeries and requiring pre-approval for non-time sensitive/urgent or non-emergent inpatient procedures, according to AdventHealth.
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Though the move takes effect Wednesday, according to the update from AdventHealth officials, all medical cases already scheduled for the week will be reviewed by officials at each campus to determine whether the facilities have adequate resources to proceed.
According to AdventHealth, red status includes the following changes:
- Hospital sites:
- First case starts reduced as needed to maximize OR efficiency
- Scheduling only same-day discharge cases for all outpatient procedures
- Defer non-time-sensitive elective outpatient surgeries
- Preapproval for all non-time-sensitive/urgent or non-emergent inpatient procedures
- Oversight by chief medical officer/campus department chair
- Outpatient surgery sites -- continue as scheduled
- Other procedure sites (cath, EP, CIE, Endo, HVE) -- continue as scheduled
- Pediatric surgery to continue without limitation
News 6 has reached out to AdventHealth about the changes but did not hear back in time for this report.
The move comes after Florida reported 17,783 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. Also as of Wednesday, more than 7,300 people were being hospitalized for the virus, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
Since March, 64,321 people have been hospitalized in Florida after complications from the coronavirus. That number includes the 439 patients who have been recently hospitalized due to the virus, according to the health department’s daily report.
Click here for a closer look at the latest COVID-19 data for Central Florida.
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