Dan Brinkman, CEO of Hilo Medical Center, in a talk with Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce members, said the hospital is ready to handle any cases of COVID-19.  Brinkman said the facility has had only one person hospitalized with COVID-19, and that was a passenger from the Diamond Princess ship, very early on in the pandemic.

Brinkman said the hospital’s precautions and plans mean anybody coming to HMC for any reason may feel comfortable they will be safe.

Brinkman said the hospital has a COVID-19 plan in place, and the staff knows how to care for COVID-19 patients –and others — safely.  Anybody being admitted to the hospital is tested, and they’ve only had one surgery with a COVID-19 patient, which they were able to do with appropriate precautions.  Any patient with an elective surgery must be tested negative in advance.

Hale Ho’ola Hamakua and Ka’u Hospital fall under the Hilo Medical Center umbrella.  Brinkman said the facilities have a rigorous testing program in place for all staff, with some tests scheduled and some random.  He said all staff members wear masks all the time, and the hospital is doing extra cleaning because of the pandemic.  He noted that from a health care and business perspective, if people are afraid of the hospital, that could have an impact on their well being as well as revenues for the hospital.

For anybody coming in as a “traveling” medical professional who’s contracted to work at any of the HMC facilities,  or any employee who has traveled off island, once they arrive on the island they must wait for 5 days, present their boarding pass to the hospital, have a COVID-19 test, and once it’s negative, then they may return to work at the hospital.  Department of Health has agreed that Hilo Medical Center will do its own contact tracing if anybody on the hospital staff tests positive, as hospital personnel are better equipped to handle that internally.

Brinkman said the hospital has stocked up on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and has a plan to “surge” hospital beds beyond current capacity if needed.  However, the island has a low case count and few have needed hospitalization.  He said the interisland quarantine which was reinstated on Tuesday will help protect the Big Island.

Hilo Medical Center is limiting visitors, who are welcomed only between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.  All visitors are temperature-checked, health-screened, logged in, and a staff member will escort the visitor to the patient’s room and then make sure when they depart, they go straight out of the hospital.  He said he understands why facilities such as Queen’s Medical Center have stopped all visitors (with some exceptions) because they have 70 or 80 COVID-19 patients, but HMC has no COVID-19 patients.  He said it’s hard on patients and families to have a “No Visitor” policy.

Hospital has arrangement with DOH that hospital will do its own contact tracing for any employees who might get it, or others in the hospital

Brinkman said one of the important things is ensuring that the entire staff knows what is going on, so every two weeks he does a Zoom update to which all 1,500 employees are invited, to dispel rumors, answer questions, and give a general hospital update.