New state directives for hospitals to further strengthen Maryland’s Coronavirus response

MARYLAND- Rising COVID-19 hospitalizations could mean additional actions for Maryland hospitals.

Governor Larry Hogan announced new directives this week to further strengthen the State’s Coronavirus response.

“We were hopeful that COVID was not going to be as big as a factor this winter, unfortunately it is almost of a significant factor as it was last year,” Sarah Arnett, VP of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at TidalHealth, said.

State health officials are ordering hospitals to undertake specific actions upon reaching certain hospitalization thresholds. This includes optimizing bed capacity, which Maryland hospitals said currently isn’t an issue.

“We still definitely have capacity, although part of the message to deliver is we would like people to not go to the emergency room for things that could be managed by their primary care physician or in an urgent care setting,” Dr. Sally Dowling, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Atlantic General, said.

But, the potential of having to adjust capacity could have a big impact on hospital resources.

“Physical bed capacity demands staffing and as we know healthcare staffing, not just nursing, staffing in general is very difficult to keep filled and at optimum levels,” Arnett said.

Maryland hospitals will also have to redeploy staff or alter staffing models if they pass certain COVID-19 patient thresholds.

“Part of what’s being considered is loosening some of the regulations around licenses so that people, both providers, physicians or nursing staff who’ve been licensed in the past but don’t currently have an up to date license could be allowed to practice and serve,” Dr. Dowling said.

Reducing non-urgent and elective surgeries will be another adjustment hospitals can make.

TidalHealth said they’ve been closely monitoring the situation as they analyze the daily dashboard.

“We’ve been kind of following that directive for quite sometime as far as monitoring what we are doing now that being said there could be some stricter requirements or requests coming through,” Arnett said.