Swedish Hospital Information on Ebola
At this time, Swedish continues to deploy increased use of screening protocols at all Emergency Departments and Urgent Care clinics within the Swedish system to identify potential cases of infectious diseases, including Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). All other clinical areas are asked to keep a high degree of awareness when registering and assessing patients. If there is any concern, then our screening tool should be used to further assess if there is any need for additional evaluation or actions
A multidisciplinary team is coordinating, educating and equipping staff with the essential tools needed to safely care for patients who are identified by screening protocols to be at risk of infection.
As a leading health provider, Swedish is taking the necessary precautions to ensure we are fully capable of safely treating infectious diseases, including Ebola. Note that it is still extremely unlikely that we will see a case of Ebola, but we want to address questions and concerns from our staff and patients.
Current processes being reviewed and/or implemented:
- Screening Triage Tool implementation
- Epic screens to document travel history
- An online HealthStreams module
- Training for proper donning and doffing of PPE (Buddy teams)
- Practical Drills to test effectiveness
- Hazardous waste containment and disposal
- High level containment cleaning protocol
- Lab specimen collection
- Rapid response PPE kits for each Emergency Department
- Scripting for patient education on process for rule out cases
- Training for appropriately triaging and transferring suspected or confirmed patients to the appropriate care environment
- Assure safety of all care providers
Important infection control information
Ebola and MERS Screening/Triage Tool
