The fight is just beginning

Our numbers are starting to grow. Every day we are seeing more and more cases of our fellow Central Oregonians infected with COVID-19. I know many of you are heeding the call to STAY AT HOME and I want to personally thank you.

And yet there are those that are continuing to gather, have block parties and put themselves and others at risk. Why? So we can prove that a virus will not control how we live our lives, because it won’t happen here. Well it’s happening here, and it is infecting our neighbors, friends and family.

This is a deadly disease. If you won’t stay home for me, please stay home for the people in your own life that you love. Stay home for your wife, husband, children and grandparents. Stay home for your doctors, nurses, environmental services caregivers, admitting caregivers, the police, firefighters, emergency medical responders, the postal workers, delivery drivers, gas station attendants, grocery store workers and all of those who are essential to keeping our society running and keep us safe.

As I write to you today, the United States has the most cases of COVID-19 in the world and growing. It is not a surprise that we ended up in this place when you consider the exponential growth behind a pandemic.

In fact it is just beginning.

At St. Charles, it feels like every day is a numbers game – how many new cases, how many hospitalized and how many recuperating at home. How do today’s numbers translate to what’s to come? Will we have enough ICU beds, ventilators, masks and staff to care for the inevitable influx of patients?

The answers will be NO if we don’t heed the call to STAY AT HOME.

What we know now is that on a normal, non-pandemic day we have 31 ICU beds and 58 ventilators throughout our four hospitals. With 23 positive COVID-19 patients in Deschutes County currently and seven of them hospitalized, you can see how it wouldn’t take much to push us over the baseline. If those 23 people infect two-to-three people each, we could easily already be on our way to being overwhelmed.

That’s why the message to stay home continues to be so important. It may feel like you are doing nothing and that it doesn’t matter because you don’t personally know anyone who is sick.

In reality, for every personal interaction you avoid, you are actively saving lives.

All of this is incredibly hard and outside our norm. Humans are social creatures and interacting with others is an important part of our mental and physical well-being.

Which is why although we are scared and working tirelessly to prepare, we are also so inspired to see the ways people are rising up to help each other. Literally thousands of our community members have reached out with messages of support, with donations of hand-sewn masks and with innovative ideas to help us with critical supply shortages. Stacks of pizzas have been delivered to our nurses along with messages of love and admiration. An entire community of people with 3D printers are now making masks and face shields to protect us. 

So today I would like to humbly say thank you.

First, thank you to all of our caregivers who keep showing up to care for our community. Thank you to the grocery store clerks, postal workers, delivery drivers, gas station attendants, EMTs, firefighters, police officers and more. You are on the frontlines and we salute you.

But also thank you to those of you who are heeding the call and staying home. You are a critical member of the St. Charles team. We can and will get through this together and we will be a stronger community for it. We will always remember how you joined us in the fight and we will be forever grateful.

Sincerely,
Joe

P.S. Below is a photo of some extraordinary humans I hope you never have to meet in person. These are the nurses of our Bend Emergency Department, the only Level II Trauma Center east of the Cascades. They’re tough as nails and always ready to take on anything that comes through the door. We’re so grateful they come to work everyday to care for our community. Please stay home for them.

It’s time to act!

Over the past several weeks, St. Charles caregivers at all levels have been working tirelessly to prepare the health system for a widespread COVID-19 outbreak in Central Oregon.

I am so proud of the way our teams have come together and made critical decisions quickly that will protect them and help us serve our community throughout this ongoing pandemic.

But I worry that without your help, everything we do won’t be enough.

While I am supporting our local caregivers, as Chairman of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, I have also been working closely with local, state and federal officials on our response to this growing public health issue.

Although the Governor has instituted an order to stay home unless you need food, medical supplies or emergency medical care – all weekend people ignored the information, went to the beach and flooded state parks and national forests. This is unacceptable.

We are in a fight right now!

This is a fight in which we have to do everything in our power to win. As the leader of your local health care system, I am begging you. Stay home now. You can’t catch or spread this disease if you don’t come in contact with it. Our caregivers and first responders are putting themselves on the frontline and don’t have a choice. They will come to work so they can care for you and your loved ones. We need you to stay home so we will have the capacity – the hospital beds, ventilators and trained staff – to care for those who need it most.

Our actions over the next few weeks are crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19. What we do in the coming days will directly impact our efforts to “flatten the curve” of the disease and slow the tide of patients that threatens to inundate our hospitals. You only need to look at New York, California and our neighbor to the north, Washington, to see what is heading our way.

We can see it coming, now is the time to act before it is too late.

Although we have created surge plans and set up tents at each of our facilities, this threat remains very real.

No matter what you’ve done in recent days, you must listen to me: The only way we are going to slow the spread of COVID-19 right now is by self-isolating at home and only leaving for essential needs like food or medicine. If you have kids at home – including teenagers – we need you to enforce this directive for them, too.

Yes, that means no trips to the popular dog park. No gathering for a picnic, even if you sit six feet apart. No spring break trips to the coast. It means stay home. These actions are necessary to save lives in our community and the lives of our health care workers.

I would also like to thank our health care workers, EMS agencies and all first responders who are putting their lives on the line to help us through this continuing crisis. They are making critical sacrifices. Please make changes in your own behavior to support them.

Sincerely,
Joe

Learn more on our COVID-19 page

The arrival of COVID-19 in Central Oregon has already forced us to make some tough decisions at St. Charles. And we are not done making them. More are coming as more COVID-19 cases are discovered in our region.

Here’s the good news: We have the right people making these decisions. They are smart, experienced and dedicated to the well-being of the communities we serve. They’re also prepared. As I told you in my last message, we’ve been planning for this outbreak for months.

Right now, our most urgent priority is keeping our frontline caregivers healthy and our facilities safe and functioning so we can deal with COVID-19 cases, as well as all the people who come to us with other medical issues. We need to continue to care for all, including pregnant women, trauma patients and people with cancer or heart disease. Those things will not stop because there’s a global pandemic.

Protecting our health care resources is very much at the heart of some of our recent decisions:

Visitor restrictions
Simply put, we cannot allow most visitors to St. Charles hospitals at this time. It is crucial that we limit who is entering our facilities, for both the safety of the people working inside and for the health of our community.

There are a few exceptions. But for the foreseeable future, we must tightly enforce these restrictions, including our new rule that no visitors below age 12 be allowed on premises and that no visitors will be allowed for patients in isolation for infection prevention.

If you have a loved one at a St. Charles hospital, we understand you may have a very strong desire to come see them in person. For now, please use the telephone or video to call them. Our caregivers can help get them connected to our Wi-Fi if needed.

Elective surgeries
All elective surgeries and other select non-urgent outpatient services have been postponed through March 28 to free up as much space as possible in our facilities and to preserve critical supplies in case there is a surge of COVID-19 patients.

We understand this decision will cause inconvenience and frustration for people whose surgeries and services must be rescheduled. Please know we’re doing it to protect you and your loved ones, and we certainly wouldn’t take this step if we didn’t think it was an important part of our preparedness plan.

Patients impacted by this decision will be contacted by St. Charles or their physician to discuss next steps.

Testing
The swabs we use to test for COVID-19 are running very low throughout the state of Oregon, and we believe it is unlikely that we’ll be able to get more. Therefore, we simply cannot test people who are worried but feel fine.

This is important to remember: If you have symptoms of COVID-19 (cough, fever, shortness of breath) but you are not so sick you need hospitalization, the best thing you can do is stay home and call your primary care physician or your county’s public health department.

That brings me to a term that may be new to you: social distancing. Not only do we need you to stay away from St. Charles unless you are a patient in need of hospitalization, we need you to stay away from each other. Social distancing means staying away from each other, especially by avoiding public gatherings and public places.

This is not a joke. It’s not “just a suggestion.” Social distancing is the one thing that experts say will help the most in combating the spread of COVID-19. If we can slow the spread of the disease through social distancing, then we can reduce its impact on our community and our health care system. If we don’t slow COVID-19, we face the very real risk of our facilities filling up, our staff being overwhelmed and our supplies running out. That is the disturbing scenario playing out in some areas of Europe right now, and we want to do everything we can to avoid it here.

To be clear, you can still do things like going outside, enjoying nature, playing board games with your family and video chatting with friends. But we need you to avoid public gatherings and public places for the time being so we’re able to care for those in our community who are sickest and need us most.

As I’m sure you know by now, this public health situation is evolving not just daily, but hourly, and we need everyone’s help in managing it. Truly, we are all in this together.

Sincerely,
Joe

P.S. We made another video of things you should know about this rapidly evolving situation, this time with Dr. Doug Merrill, our chief medical officer for St. Charles Bend and Redmond. I hope you'll watch it.

Note: Replies to this message will go to a general St. Charles email address. That address is being monitored for frequently asked questions and, if appropriate, answers will be provided in a future communication.

Earlier today, Deschutes County announced the first presumptive positive case of COVID-19 in Central Oregon.

I know many of you are concerned about the spread of this disease, but I want to let you know that St. Charles Health System has been expecting this moment for many weeks, and we have been preparing for just as long. We are ready.

Our excellent hospitals, clinics and teams care for patients with infectious illnesses every single day, and they know exactly what to do. I have no doubt that this patient – like all of our patients – is receiving the best possible care.

Now, I have a few messages I want to pass along to you:

Stay calm and resist misinformation
COVID-19 is a new illness, and new illnesses often lead to fear and concern for some. The glut of information online – some accurate, some inaccurate – can increase anxiety.

When you seek information about the virus, look to credible sources like Deschutes County Health Services and the Oregon Health Authority. I assure you the officials at both of those organizations are committed to keeping the public safe, healthy and informed. You can also find links to credible resources on our COVID-19 webpage.

And for those of you on social media, please resist the urge to speculate, share rumors or post misinformation. All of it makes it harder for the credible sources to cut through the clutter.

Unless you’re a patient seeking care, please avoid visiting St. Charles hospitals 
One of the threats presented by COVID-19 is the possibility of overwhelming our health care infrastructure. It is vitally important that we keep our hospitals functioning and our caregivers safe so they can take care of not only COVID-19 patients, but all the other people in our community with health issues.

As a result, this message is very simple: Do not go to a St. Charles hospital if you are not a patient with a reason to be there. This includes vendors, delivery services, business partners and other non-essential visitors. Even family members of current patients should consider whether now is the best time to visit. And if you are sick, please stay home and call your primary care physician or your local public health department to discuss your symptoms and next steps.

Signs and symptoms of COVID-19
After my last message, many of you wrote me to ask about the symptoms of this virus. They are pretty basic: fever, cough and shortness of breath. For more information, visit the symptoms page of the CDC’s website.

Lastly, we recently asked one of our physicians, Dr. Bob Pfister, to answer some of your most common COVID-19 questions. You can watch him do that in this video:

Our community is understandably concerned about the spread of COVID-19 disease, caused by a novel coronavirus. As the region’s safety net health care provider, St. Charles Health System is prepared to care for patients arriving with respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19.

It’s important to note that while Oregon has had 14 confirmed cases of COVID-19, there are currently no known cases in Crook, Deschutes or Jefferson counties. That doesn’t mean there is no risk, however, which is why St. Charles is working closely with local public health departments, the Oregon Health Authority and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to coordinate a regional response and contain the spread of the virus if it arrives in our communities.

What we’re doing now
St. Charles is working hard every day to be prepared.

Our patient access support specialists are asking symptom-screening and travel questions, and our caregivers are using that information to appropriately triage and isolate patients with respiratory symptoms.

Our health system has initiated its Hospital Incident Command Structure (or HICS as we call it), which is meeting daily to effectively manage our communications, logistics and planning efforts.

We’ve begun controlling access to our facilities to ensure the safety of our patients, visitors and caregivers. At each access point, we are requiring individuals to sanitize their hands, as well as put on a mask if they show up with a fever, cough or cold symptoms. Those who are visitors, and not patients seeking care, may be asked to leave.

We’re also part of the Central Oregon Emergency Information Network (COEIN), which has established a Joint Information Center where many local and state agencies (including us) are working alongside one another to deliver timely, accurate communication and debunk myths. If you’re not already following this group, I encourage you to do so.

We are taking these steps out of an abundance of caution and with the goal of being proactive in the protection of our community. As the situation with COVID-19 changes rapidly, our response will also evolve. As always, your safety and quality of care is at the forefront of all we do.

Helpful resources
We know you continue to have many questions, and our partners in public health have done a great job of putting together resources, including the Oregon Health Authority’s COVID-19: Frequently Asked Questions.

Up-to-date information is also available here:

• Deschutes County Public Health COVID-19 page
• Deschutes County Public Health Daily Situation Update Email
• Call 2-1-1 from a mobile phone, or email [email protected] for general information
• CDC COVID-19 page
• CDC travel notice
• World Health Organization page

I know it’s not high-tech, but the best way for all of us to prevent the spread of the new virus is the same as we prevent the spread of influenza and other viruses: Wash your hands, cover your coughs and stay home when you’re ill.

To stay informed about what we’re doing at St. Charles, keep an eye on our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

This December marks my fifth anniversary as president and CEO of St. Charles Health System.

It’s amazing how five years can feel like a long time and an instant all at once.

When I reflect on that time, I’m so proud of the milestones we have achieved as a team. I didn’t know at first that replacing our electronic health record would be a necessity. Nor did I realize right away how desperately we would need to add space to our facilities to accommodate a rapidly growing community.

Together, we have achieved so much.

The implementation of Epic as our electronic health record – a project that touched every one of our 4,500 caregivers, has advanced our ability to provide the safest possible care. We constructed and opened a new patient tower in Bend, are currently expanding our Prineville campus and completed a remodel and addition in Madras as well.

We opened a clinic in La Pine to serve our southern Deschutes County residents and are working on plans to expand cancer services in Redmond.

During my time here, we celebrated an incredible 100 years of providing care for all.

These accomplishments are just the tip of the iceberg. Every day, St. Charles caregivers save lives inside and outside of our walls – because the reality is our greatest strength is in our people.

But we couldn’t do any of it without you. Quite simply, without the support and trust of the communities we serve, these many milestones would not have been possible to reach.

Thank you for being such an important part of the past five years. I’m looking forward to what we’ll accomplish together next.

Sincerely,

Joe Sluka
President and CEO
St. Charles Health System

Our world is changing at an incredible pace, and it’s no different in health care.

Across St. Charles Health System, we’re committed to leading our industry on several fronts. We’re using powerful technology and new techniques to improve the way we treat patients, while at the same time partnering with other organizations on training and education to ensure Central Oregonians receive uniformly excellent care.

We’ve implemented a number of initiatives to ensure the LGBTQ community feels comfortable coming to a St. Charles facility, and we’re helping respond to the water crisis in Warm Springs – not because we’re a health care provider, but because it’s the right thing to do for our friends and neighbors.

Here are a few other things worth knowing about St. Charles:

• Our hospitals and the jobs they create – both directly and indirectly – play a vital role in the region’s economic wellness.
• Last spring, we welcomed our first child life specialist, whose role is to help children cope with the challenges of their care.
• A team of surgeons at St. Charles Bend used a novel procedure to save the life of a 79-year-old patient who couldn’t tolerate a more conventional approach.
• St. Charles Redmond received a grade of “A” for patient safety from a national nonprofit group committed to improving health care quality and safety.

At St. Charles, we know that if we aren’t relentlessly focused on forward-thinking, innovative pathways of care, then we’re not doing our part to make Central Oregon America’s healthiest community. That’s our vision, and it stands at the heart of everything we do.

Joe Sluka
President and CEO
St. Charles Health System

A message from our president and CEO, Joe Sluka

At St. Charles, something new is happening every day.

In Bend, we’ve opened our new tower and moved patients into our new Intensive Care Unit and Progressive Care Unit. These big and beautiful spaces with state-of-the-art technology will increase capacity to care for patients, shorten patient stays, improve patient safety and allow us to treat more people closer to home.

At St. Charles Prineville, construction has started on an expansion that will provide more room for same-day access to primary care appointments, space for visiting specialists and a larger rehabilitation facility.

St. Charles Redmond has a new ranking to be proud of: #1 in the state of Oregon for quality outcomes according to HealthInsight, an organization dedicated to improving health care across the West. We are also excited to launch our first robotic surgeries in Redmond next week, which will give patients access to less invasive procedures with a quicker recovery time.

And in Madras, we are working closely with community partners to ensure consistent, quality care for patients throughout all stages of life. We are working on donating computers and supplies to the Warm Springs Reservation and recently provided Stop the Bleed training to employees at Madras Farms.

Here are a few other things happening at St. Charles:

• Take a few minutes to read this incredible story about St. Charles caregivers who were in the right place at the right time to save a life.
• This spring we gave away more than $80,000 to support local nonprofits as part of our community benefit program.
• In May, we launched our “Vax for that” public health campaign, aimed at increasing vaccination rates in the area.
• Mothers love our informative “Walk with a Midwife” series, which pairs our in-house midwifery expertise with sunshine and exercise.

Taking care of our community involves a lot of moving parts, but the important thing to remember is that each and every one of them is part of our commitment to creating America’s healthiest community, together – right here in Central Oregon.

Thanks for partnering with us.

Joe Sluka
President and CEO

St. Charles Health System