MUSC Health tri-weekly COVID-19 report (April 15)

CHARLESTON, S.C. (April 15, 2020) –At MUSC Health, the safety of patients, families, care team members, students, faculty and staff remains the number one priority. In an effort to provide accurate, relevant and timely COVID-19 information to news media in South Carolina and beyond, the MUSC Public Affairs and Media Relations (PAMR) department issues regular COVID-19 updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. Please read the report in its entirety.

MODELING, TESTING, TRACKING KEY TO RE-ENTRY, ECONOMIC REVITALIZATION

MUSC continues to identify and align with other expertise in and outside of the organization on leading indicators to better project the possible apex and magnitude of the COVID-19 wave headed for South Carolina.

Senior leaders and experts gathered for a virtual press conference today at 11 a.m. to launch a new digital resource called the MUSC COVID-19 Epidemiology Intelligence Project.

Key takeaways from the project’s first report are:

There is evidence that in the past 3 weeks, social distancing has reduced the growth of new cases substantially.
We do expect a surge of patients with COVID-19 entering hospitals beginning in the next few weeks.
This surge of patients is not expected to exceed the capacity of MUSC University Hospital to provide high quality care.\
Vigilance is needed to assure that the COVID-19 transmission remains controlled.
If social distancing is reduced now, new cases could grow quickly.
Future waves are possible.
“Super spreader” events and cluster outbreaks can rapidly change epidemic trajectory.
We are closely tracking key leading indicators will continue to update the public with our best analyses in the days ahead.

The next update for the project is planned for April 17. Updates will occur on Tuesdays and Fridays until no longer needed. The analyses to date have been focused primarily on the Charleston area; however, efforts are ongoing to extend these analyses to other areas of the state such as Florence and Lancaster.

The goal of sharing this information is to help the public understand where we are now, projected outlooks for our area, how our efforts to prepare look compared to what the data is showing us, and next steps related to testing and tracing capability that lead to a more normal lifestyle in the weeks ahead.

MUSC Health reopens imaging facility at West Ashley Medical Pavilion

MUSC Health reopened an imaging center armed with multiple protections against COVID-19 on Monday. It’s in the West Ashley Medical Pavilion at the former Citadel Mall, now called the Charleston Epic Center.

MUSC In-house COVID-19 testing capability

MUSC Health has fully mobilized its in-house testing capability. This web article provides a deep dive into how it’s happening, who is involved and the steps MUSC has taken to make it possible. Images, b-roll and interviews related to this new testing capability are available through:

Main External Media folder link

Covid-19 Folder

Testing/Lab Folder

MUSC COVID-19 info for repurpose with permission/credit or follow-up story ideas:

Researchers hope to learn more about coronavirus epidemic by studying frontline health care workers

Community support boosts COVID-19 supply connection

Middle school student, Asian American community donate medical supplies

MUSC students continue learning, studying as they pivot to practice distance education

MUSC chaplains attend to staff, patients during continued uncertainty of pandemic

The following information is for the Charleston area only. For information about MUSC Health Florence or Marion Medical Centers, please contact Kim Geiger at geigerki@musc.edu. For information about MUSC Health Chester or Lancaster Medical Centers, please contact Ashley Shannon at shannona@musc.edu.

CONFIRMED AS OF 4-15-2020:

Basic stats

Telehealth screenings through musc.care: Approximately 39,000

Total patients seen at West Ashley specimen collection site: Approximately 5,000

Inpatient pending rule-outs: 16

Total number of completed COVID-19 tests: 6,923

COVID-19 positive cases

Inpatient: 6

Outpatient/community collection site: 401

Please note PAMR is no longer adding these two numbers together for an overall total. Fluidity in patient status (i.e., from hospitalization to home isolation, or vice versa) makes a “total” of the two numbers above an inaccurate representation of the data due to the possibility of double-counting patients.

The number of COIVD-19 positive health care workers (41) is included in the number above. Given the stability of the number over time and the extensive precautions being taken by the system to minimize the risk of exposure, going forward this number will be confirmed or provided upon request.

The safety of our care team remains of utmost importance to us. MUSC Health has a very conservative COVID-19 specific return to work; care team members are not allowed to come to work if they are experiencing COVID-19-like respiratory symptoms or if they have not completed the testing process when kno5n to have a high-risk exposure in or outside of work. Many of our care team members have fared well and recovered quickly.

We support our team member's rights to privacy and protection of health information and will not confirm or deny name, role or any other identifying information related to COVID-19 positive cases for our workforce. We have internal notification and tracing protocols in place to contact those patients who may have been at high-risk for exposure from a health care provider.

Surge capacity

General status (green, yellow, red): GREEN

No change since April 10 report

Supplies / Equipment

General status (green, yellow, red): GREEN

No change since April 13 report

MUSC Health is encouraging the community to donate supplies at the MUSC Warehouse in North Charleston, located at 4295 Arco Lane Charleston, SC 29418. For a current list of supply requests, please visit this page.

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About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state’s only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and nearly 800 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state’s leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2019, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $284 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3.2 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.