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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-2020 APRIL 22 2020 MINUTES Deschutes County Health Services Public Health Advisory Board MINUTES MINUTES April 22, 2020 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. via Zoom videoconferencing Facilitator Keith Winsor, Chair Staff Coordinator Tom Kuhn, Community Health Manager Scribe Lisa Michael Next Meeting May 27, 2020 – TBD Topic and Lead Introductions and Approval of February Meeting Minutes Dave motioned to approve the minutes as submitted, which were seconded by Robert. Brief Announcements & Unfinished Business Tom gave the floor to Nahad who called in to briefly introduce himself to the Board. He came on board to Deschutes County Health Services a little over 3 weeks ago and moved here with his wife and 2 twin children. He grew up in the Midwest and has worked for the CDC, the WHO and most recently UNICEF. He wanted to commend Hillary for her 30 plus years working for DCHS in a public health capacity. She has graciously agreed to stay on for the next couple months to lend a hand with the Covid-19 crisis and ease the transition period for Nahad. Right now, Nahad is focusing on the day-to-day operations and working on Covid priorities. He plans to meet everyone on the Board as soon as we can arrange an in-person meeting. Tom gave an update on the Health Heroes and announced that 11 people have voted (5 PHAB members and 6 BHAB members). There is a tie for the individual and group awards, so Tom will send out another email and ask those Board members who have not already done so to please vote. Tom mentioned that Tanya is now an official board member and that Alison Perry will be also as soon as the BOCC has time to approve her appointment. Member Round Table updates Keith led the round table discussion by asking each Board member to talk about what they are doing, how they are coping, dealing with work and family, any volunteer opportunities and do they know anyone who has the virus? Keith is trying to keep busy at home and said his volunteer work has been put on hold. He asked if there is even a need right now for any volunteer work. Tom mentioned he is working at the office four days a week. He is responsible for PH operations, while others in the office are working on external response. Most staff are working remotely with just a handful working in the office answering phone calls and doing work that “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 8/4/20 cannot be done at home. He also noted that the hospital has no Covid patients at this time for the first time in several weeks. There are currently 64 positive cases and 40 have recovered. St. Charles has recently ramped up testing in case there is a need. Channa is mostly working remotely and asked if the Board has seen Jenny’s daily Covid update. COHC originally started the updates and forwarded to DCHS. Channa told the Board once they get on the website, they can sign up to receive the daily report via email. Channa is on the internal response team with Tom. Rebeckah said she is still working full-time but funding has shifted to help different area organizations out around the Covid virus. COHC has funneled $150k back into the community in the last 3 weeks supporting telehealth for BH clinics, transportation access, NeighborImpact, and CareKids. Food insecurity is becoming an even bigger issue now too. Dave met with Doctors without Borders back in March to get their perspective on the Covid-19 virus. He has been working with COVO as well. He heard that one person has the virus where his mother is staying in a care facility in the Midwest. Sharity is working remotely and conducting tele dentistry work. She pointed out that urgent and emergent care is still open for any kind of emergency situations. Their office has received about 25 to 30 daily calls and has routed about 50% of those patients to in-person care. Rob gave an update on the Covid situation at St. Charles. He is working three days a week at the office and two at home and is on the Medical Group Incident Command team. St. Charles started getting organized and ready for response in mid-February before the virus even came here. Rob mentioned that Covid-19 testing has been very limited at the hospital, but they are starting to ramp up drive-thru testing as of last week, although demand is not as great as expected. About 25 to 30 tests are being conducted currently, up from 10 to 15 per day. Tests were being sent to the University of Washington with a turnaround result time of 3 to 7 days. They are also offering drive-thru testing for anti-coagulation. At first people were hesitant to come in with everything going on, but they are starting to see more activity and conducting more testing. Rob had some good news and announced there are no cases in the hospital right now, although there were 14 at one time, but no deaths reported. There are 7 primary care clinics that are handling 60 to 70% of their caseloads via video chat with patients. Not everything can be done by video, so some of these clinics are having to make in-person appointments. St. Charles is also ramping up on their contact tracing. Rob spoke about the trial testing of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin and said reports are showing this combination of drugs is more harmful than helpful and resulting in some deaths. Harvesting plasma from people for their immunoglobulins may help, but far more research and testing will be required. Tami is working from home and noted that her daughter is a front line worker so she worries about her safety. Tanya is also working from home and mentioned there is one food bank in Sisters where she lives, which is open every other week. They are trying to open every week and get some younger volunteers to help out. There are three main events in Sisters that bring great “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 8/4/20 economic support to the town. So far the Sisters Rodeo has been cancelled, which will cause a huge negative impact on local businesses. There has been no word yet whether or not the Sisters Quilt Show or Folk Festival will go on as planned. Jason said he is still open and busy with patients experiencing urgent/emergent care. About 100 beds are full and there are twice that many that are not. He worries there will be a backlog once the state allows elective surgeries to open back up. Jim wanted to acknowledge Joe and Lynn Sluka for sharing their personal experience in announcing they lost a family member recently to the virus who lived on the east coast. Jim also mentioned he is a volunteer at the Family Kitchen and unable to work there right now. High Desert Village is still helping people and the City of Bend is allowing the homeless who were living at Juniper Ridge to move into camps out at China Hat by his house. At least the city is providing hand wash stations for them. Jim was unable to sign up for the Covid-19 updates. Tom will email the link to the Board directly for whomever wants to sign up. Jim asked if anyone has heard of any developments on sustained immunity in South Korea. What sidebars does DCHS have for businesses on social distancing? Steve is mostly working from home and only going into the office once or twice a week. Five clinics are closed at the moment with 90% of Mosaic staff working remotely and 90% of their client visits being conducted through video chat. Client visits are down at least 20%, so Mosaic is on the hunt for grant funds or a loan to keep operations going. They do have a new st pharmacy in Prineville that just opened on March 31. Charla said all their sites are still open and they are trying to keep people out of the hospital. They were the first to open for curbside testing and when the weather wasn’t cooperating for their outside tent, they had to move everything inside to their community room, which ended up working out just fine. With things changing so rapidly, they have had to adjust their workflows every few hours. So far they haven’t had any Covid cases, but flu numbers are way up. OCHIN has been helping with patient telemedicine and phone calls, which the clinic does not get reimbursed for. They experienced a 40% caseload drop in March and a 53% drop in April. Charla mentioned she has been applying for funding anywhere they can get it right now and she has to report on that tomorrow. It’s been really hard keeping employees focused on patient care, so the Covid updates help a lot. Charla shared that some of their patients have purchased lunches and flowers for staff and have made masks. One patient even gave staff at the front desk a small monetary donation since the clinic has been hit hard financially. 2020 Central Oregon Health Equity Report Keith and Tom decided to table this discussion until the next meeting in May due to time constraints. COVID-19 update st Jill gave an update on the latest COVID-19 news. On January 21, a response team was formed and to date there are 66 confirmed cases and 12 staff who are conducting investigations. No new cases have popped up in the last few days and the most in one day has been 5. OHA is relaxing some guidelines and monitoring contacts. Staff who are investigating are collecting chart notes from providers, checking on patients and looking into how they were “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 8/4/20 exposed and who else they may have exposed. Over 140 contacts are being monitored and investigated. Staff are educating those infected on how to self-quarantine, so as not to spread the virus any further. Jill explained that modernization funding is helping to support 33 local LTCF’s and Kari Coe has been keeping in touch with them to build a good rapport and provide education. The LTCF’s are now reporting anything and everything to us. DCHS and OHA are helping to provide the LTCF’s with PPE at their request. So far, 1400 tests have been conducted in Deschutes County by drive-thru testing. Testing is expanding and 62 people in the last week alone have been tested. Providers have been using commercial labs for results, which have reduced the wait time from a week down to 3 days. The Oregon State Public Health Laboratory has been very restrictive on testing requirements, but recently loosened up their guidelines this week to include testing vulnerable populations and pushing counties to test more. DCHS is looking at ways to have a public health nurse test the homeless and the unhoused population and also educate these people on the importance of handwashing and social distancing. OHA is developing plans to hire 500 plus people to assist in contact tracing around the state by hiring a combination of clinical and non-clinical staff. Either way, there will be training involved. Tanya asked if community health workers could train for this and get involved using an on-line training module. Jim asked if there were any predominant patterns of exposure. Jill said there were 10 cases identified through family contacts. A few of those were from domestic travel and a few were through community spread. About half of all cases in Central Oregon had some kind of exposure through some kind of travel. Board Members Present: Keith Winsor, Rebeckah Berry, Charla DeHate, Dave Huntley, Jason Jundt, Jim Powell, Peter Boehm, Robert Ross, Sharity Ludwig, Steve Strang, Tami Pike, Tanya Nason Staff Present: Tom Kuhn, Nadad Sadr-Azodi, Lisa Michael Guest Speakers: Channa Lindsay (staff) and Jill Johnson (staff) CDC – Centers for Disease Control/Prevention UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund DCHS – Deschutes County Health Services PHAB – Public Health Advisory Board BHAB – Behavioral Health Advisory Board BOCC – Board of County Commissioners PH – Public Health COHC – Central Oregon Health Council COVO – Central Oregon Veteran’s Outreach OCHIN – Oregon Community Health Information Network OHA – Oregon Health Authority LTCFs – Long Term Care Facilities PPE – Personal Protective Equipment “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 8/4/20