September 20 - The Swine Flu

Well it has been a few weeks since the start of the swine flu pandemic here in Memphis and I can say that I have lost a LOT of sleep over it.

Things were plodding along well as they were supposed to and then all of the sudden I get a call while on vacation in Pigeon Forge saying that the bottom has falled out at the hospital and patient volume is rising to never before seen levels.

I was supposed to attend a disaster planning session for 2 days after returning from my vacation, however, I was told that things were too crazy at the hospital and that I needed to report back to work ASAP.

After reporting back to work, it was clear that we were in uncharted waters. We were seeing >350 patients per day peaking around 420 in an emergency department that is staffed and budgeted to handle about 180 patients per day. It was clear that our current system was unsustainable.

After struggling with options and plans, it was finally determined that a flu screening tent would be utilized to manage the volumes and I, along with a few others, were charged with making this happen. Immediately we began preparing for the tent and within 12 hours of the decision, we had developed a protocol for medical screening, trained our first medical screeners, erected a 40x66 tent, placed porta-potties in the parking lot, created a screening form, and started to decompress the emergency department.

After another few sleepless nights working to ensure that the process was working and after a few new appearances, we are beginning to see the true benefit of the work that we are doing. Patient wait times have dramatically improved, patient satisfaction is at very high levels, total turnaround times are improving significantly and these things are all happening with never before seen levels of volume.

I cannot begin to say how proud I am of the great team that I work with which has made this happen. The RNs, RRTs, Medics, PCCs, and everyone else that has played a part in making the tent a success truly are heros! I never thought that it would come to providing care in a tent at a major metropolitian emergency department, however, I have to say, it is working very well!