OHSU coronavirus (COVID-19) response | OHSU News

Aerial of OHSU. (OHSU/Aaron Bieleck)

As of Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022

Sufferers hospitalized with COVID-19

• OHSU: 12
• Hillsboro Medical Heart: 8
• OHSU Hospital and OHSU Well being Hillsboro Medical Heart hospitalization particulars:

  • 5 Not Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 14 Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 1 Absolutely Vaccinated with Booster

    • 0 de-isolated
    • 20 infectious

• 5 Sufferers in ICU

  • 3 Not Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 2 Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 0 Absolutely Vaccinated with Booster

• 3 Sufferers on a Ventilator

  • 1 Not Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 2 Absolutely Vaccinated
  • 0 Absolutely Vaccinated with Booster

• Adventist Well being Portland: 2

OHSU-specific knowledge

• Since Feb. 28, 2020, there have been 261,928 sufferers examined. Amongst these, a complete of 28,515 COVID-19 circumstances have been detected; 12 sufferers are at the moment in hospital; and 169 sufferers have exams pending. There have been 212 in-hospital deaths.
• There have been 7 new detected affected person circumstances since Oct. 11.
• So far, OHSU has accomplished 45,528 COVID-19 exams for 14,113 workers and college students. Of these, 4,614 exams for 3,795 workers and college students detected COVID-19; 40,455 exams for 12,572 people resulted in not detected; 320 exams are pending.

OHSU group vaccinations

• OHSU has administered 456,221 vaccine doses by way of its group vaccination websites, along with the 546,166 vaccine doses administered thus far by way of the Oregon Conference Heart vaccination web site, which was collectively managed by OHSU, Legacy Well being, Kaiser Permanente and Windfall Well being & Companies. (For extra details about group places and who’s eligible, see “Neighborhood COVID-19 vaccination websites” under.)

Because the state’s tutorial well being middle, Oregon Well being & Science College stays engaged with state and native public well being authorities and well being methods throughout the metro space to coordinate a regional response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective is to comprise the unfold of the virus, together with by way of using vaccines that first arrived at OHSU on Dec. 15, 2020.

Starting within the earliest days of the pandemic, OHSU activated an emergency operations middle that tailored response plans already in place from earlier pandemic influenza outbreaks, and this group continues to fulfill.

OHSU has ready to deal with a surge of sufferers with COVID-19 whereas working proactively to comprise the unfold of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and defend our workforce.

Neighborhood COVID-19 vaccination websites

COVID-19 testing

OHSU is dedicated to making sure all Oregonians have entry to COVID-19 testing and applicable well being care, notably folks of colour and different people from communities hardest hit by COVID-19. All through the pandemic, OHSU supplied low-barrier drive-through testing that has tracked surges in case counts, at numerous factors accommodating as many as 700 folks a day by way of websites in Hillsboro, the Oregon Conference Heart and the Portland Expo Heart.

Beginning March 14, 2022, sufferers and group members can get free COVID-19 testing at OHSU speedy care clinics on its South Waterfront Campus and in Beaverton. Testing will probably be indoor and by appointment from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday by way of Friday. Individuals might name OHSU’s Linked Care Heart at 833-647-8222 to schedule.

Learn more about other OHSU COVID-19 testing options and resources.

Affected person care

• OHSU is following the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s recommendations to permit crucial operate well being care workers to return to work six days, relatively than 10 days, after a COVID-19 an infection underneath the next circumstances: Employees have had delicate to reasonable sickness and should not immunocompromised; and their signs are enhancing and they’re in any other case feeling nicely. This transformation permits OHSU to handle group well being care wants and staffing challenges associated to COVID-19. Employees on this place will probably be required to put on N-95 masks.
• On Feb. 1, 2022, OHSU opened a Centralized Transportation Heart. Employees is obtainable seven days every week to assist schedule transportation for sufferers shifting between buildings or discharging from the hospital and clinics. The middle permits OHSU to extra shortly make area for brand new sufferers through the present surge in circumstances pushed by the omicron variant.
• OHSU manages an unprecedented surge of critically ill patients from the delta variant starting in the summertime of 2021. Frontline well being care employees reiterate the significance of individuals getting vaccinated. “This can be a preventable sickness,” says Erin Boni, R.N., B.S.N., “This does not must occur to anybody anymore.”
• OHSU has established a Long COVID-19 Program to supply complete, coordinated take care of folks experiencing debilitating signs months after their an infection.
• OHSU has established a sequence of steps to arrange sufferers who’ve recovered from COVID-19 for elective surgery following their illness. It is believed to be the primary revealed protocol laying out a COVID-era path ahead in American medication.
• OHSU has applied a “masks on” coverage for all sufferers, guests and workers contained in the hospital. All staff who work in affected person care areas obtain masks offered by OHSU. 
• OHSU’s analysis group got here collectively to launch an in-house COVID-19 testing lab on March 24, 2020. The lab is an instance of the various collaborations which have been taking place at OHSU and within the well being care group. On this case, members of the analysis group rallied to assist the scientific group and testing in a drive to fight COVID-19. The lab’s capability tremendously expanded in October 2020.
• In June 2021, OHSU acquired federal and state funding to dramatically expand the state’s ability to track variants of concern throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington.
• OHSU’s Telemedicine Program presents a possibility for sufferers to seek the advice of with licensed clinicians by way of a phone or video connection from their house, limiting boundaries to well being care entry. The service has expanded exponentially in response to COVID-19.

Workforce administration

• OHSU has offered childcare accommodations, together with a $7.5 million hardship stipend, to assist maintain its workforce through the pandemic.
• A training video OHSU developed to arrange its college students and workers to provide COVID-19 vaccines is now getting used to coach California paramedics and emergency medical technicians as that state ramps up its struggle towards the pandemic.
• OHSU has instituted a wellness program designed to assist clinicians, staff and college students through the COVID-19 pandemic. One instance is a grant-funded program that paid native eating places to produce hot meals for high-impact frontline health care workers following the vacations.
• OHSU is selling bodily distancing inside the college, and consists of requiring non-critical operate staff to work remotely and minimizing the variety of folks gathered for in-person conferences by way of video and teleconferencing alternate options. 

Analysis and growth

• OHSU knowledge scientist Peter Graven, Ph.D., has offered weekly updates of projections for hospitalizations statewide, which will become biweekly as the wave of infections generated by the omicron variant recedes. Starting early within the pandemic, Graven modeled the projected unchecked unfold of the virus and commenced sharing these projections with state and native policymakers on the onset of the pandemic in Oregon in March of 2020. These projections helped inform Oregon’s “Keep Dwelling, Save Lives” efforts to cut back the unfold of the virus and guarantee it would not exceed the capability of well being methods to deal with a surge of sufferers who required hospitalization.
• A laboratory research revealed Dec. 16, 2021, means that breakthrough infections following vaccination generate “super immunity” to COVID-19. Follow-up research published on Jan. 25, 2022, reveals equally robust immunity from infection followed by vaccination. OHSU research published online on April 29, 2021, suggests that individuals beforehand contaminated with the novel coronavirus stand to get a significantly better advantage of safety towards new variants in the event that they’re vaccinated. An earlier laboratory study highlighted the significance of stopping the unfold of virus variants by way of vaccination. And one other laboratory research reveals telltale signals of immunity towards new variants within the blood of individuals 11 months after an infection. On July 21, 2021, OHSU scientists co-authored a research revealed within the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation linking age to immune response measured in blood serum.
• An OHSU study goals to raised perceive the immune system’s response to COVID-19 throughout and after being pregnant.
• OHSU scientists and physicians are engaged in a multipronged effort throughout the establishment to enhance scientific understanding of the novel coronavirus and produce the pandemic underneath management.
• In November 2020, OHSU introduced a partnership with the native nonprofit Self Enhancement Inc. on a pilot study that mixes wastewater monitoring with voluntary saliva-based testing of residents in 4 Portland neighborhoods. Preliminary outcomes are promising, and the venture has helped forge connections with historically underserved communities.
• An OHSU-led evidence review, revealed in June 2020, finds that facial coverings seem to lower the danger of spreading respiratory sicknesses in group settings.
• OHSU knowledge scientists are main a nationwide collaboration of clinicians, informaticians and different biomedical researchers who goal to show knowledge from tons of of 1000’s of medical information from coronavirus sufferers into efficient remedies and predictive analytical instruments that would assist reduce or finish the pandemic.
• OHSU has joined with different universities and tutorial medical facilities throughout the nation to ease licensing necessities to expedite promising new applied sciences to diagnose, deal with and stop COVID-19. 

Neighborhood measures

• OHSU offers free screening for COVID-19 among students in K-12 schools throughout three areas of the state, in a partnership with the Oregon Well being Authority and Oregon Division of Training.
• OHSU dramatically increased the region’s ability to track virus variants, by way of new investments by federal and state public well being authorities. The initiative harnesses the college’s scientific and analysis experience.
• Within the conflict towards COVID-19, OHSU raced to vaccinate as many Oregonians as quickly as possible. Over time, the objective is to drive the virus into submission by chopping off its potential to unfold.
• On Dec. 3, 2020, Gov. Kate Brown appointed Louis Picker, M.D., as one in every of two Oregon scientists to independently evaluation the protection and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines that obtain emergency use authorization from the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration. On Dec. 11, 2020, Brown appointed OHSU Chief Administration Officer Connie Seeley as a particular advisor for vaccine implementation in Oregon.
• OHSU established a Linked Care Heart, obtainable by telephone to folks all through Oregon who search perception concerning the care of signs associated to COVID-19. The telephone quantity is 833-647-8222.
• OHSU President Danny Jacobs, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, joined different nationwide well being care leaders in raising alarm about disparities in well being outcomes alongside racial and socioeconomic strains amongst these tormented by COVID-19. OHSU researchers confirmed the disproportionate affect of the virus on Black and Hispanic populations with an evidence review published Dec. 1, 2020.

Methods to assist