BRMH Continues Taking Extra Measures to Protect Patients and Staff

Although there are still a lot of unknowns as it relates to the timeline of this pandemic and the characteristics of COVID-19, Black River Memorial Hospital (BRMH), would like to acknowledge the significant progress we have made as a community by coming together while staying apart.

While COVID-19 is new, the processes and procedures in place at BRMH for infection prevention and preventing the spread of illnesses are not. BRMH would like to further reassure the public that extra measures continue to be taken at the hospital to protect the public and the staff during this time. Additionally, although there is always a chance of contracting an illness anytime one leaves the house, receiving care at the hospital when it is needed is not only low-risk but strongly encouraged.

BRMH is seeing an upward trend of patients arriving at the Emergency Room that require critical care. Experts at BRMH attribute this trend to people likely being more afraid to leave their house for medical care. In many of those situations, if care would have been delivered sooner, the outcome could have been a lot different.

“We want to remind our community we are still here for them, perhaps even more now than ever,” said Miranda TerBeest, Marketing and Community Relations Director at BRMH. “We are taking extra steps to protect our staff and patients so our community can continue to receive the care they need, especially when it is urgent and time-sensitive.”

The hospital has implemented the following measures to further ensure the safety of the public and their staff –

• Universal masking of all staff, patients, and approved visitors as a form of source control
• Implementing visitor restrictions to limit exposure
• Extra daily cleaning of all mid to high-touch surfaces
• Removing any unnecessary high-touch surfaces such as kiosks, magazines, and newspapers in the waiting areas
• Practicing social distancing in all areas of the hospital and canceling all non-essential in-person meetings
• Adding physical barriers at all registration desks to ensure proper social distancing is taking place
• Discontinuing all self-service food and beverage options in the cafeteria and waiting rooms
• Screening all employees for symptoms and temperatures at the beginning of their shift
• Screening all patients and approved visitors for symptoms upon entering the facility and
• Testing of all surgical patients before their procedure

“The risk of contracting COVID-19 while receiving care at the hospital is very low,” stated Dr. Esteban Miller, Chief Medical Officer at BRMH. “Our Incident Command Team continues to meet and communicate daily to ensure we are doing everything we can to continue providing the highest level of care in the safest way possible.”

BRMH has also been working diligently on developing plans for resuming elective and non-emergent services which will begin to roll out the week of May 11^th. BRMH is committed to ensuring the gradual resumption plan meets all the highest standards for safety and quality while keeping the risk level for contracting COVID-19 very low.

If you have any concerns about COVID-19, or if you have any symptoms, please contact your primary care provider or call the BRMH COVID-19 screening line at 715-284-3906.

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