As U.S. hospitals receive guidance on Ebola from infectious disease specialists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some hospitals say they are prepared.
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As the second of two American patients infected with the Ebola virus in Western Africa was admitted to a U.S. hospital Tuesday, infectious disease specialist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated healthcare workers on the status of the outbreak and provided guidance on preparing U.S. hospitals for Ebola cases.
Aside from the two medical evacuations, there has yet to be a confirmed case of the Ebola virus in the United States. But hospitals are preparing for that possibility. A woman in an Ohio hospital tested negative for Ebola and a man at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York is in isolation awaiting test results, but it "is unlikely to have Ebola," the city's health department said in a statement Monday.
In a one-hour webinar for clinicians, Barbara Knust, epidemiologist at the CDC's division of high consequence pathogens and pathology and David Kuhar, MD, from the CDC's division of healthcare quality promotion, shared information about the cause of the disease, how it is transmitted, and offered guidance on preventative measures.
Knust and Kuhar emphasized that Ebola is only transmittable through body fluids and quickly dies outside a host body. Victims are not contagious until symptoms develop. The CDC supplied guidelines for evaluating patients and for managing infection prevention and control for hospitalized patients.
For healthcare workers in hospitals, the preventative steps shouldn't feel that different from normal, day-to-day precautions that are already in place, says Shira Doron, MD, a physician specializing in infectious diseases and an associate hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
"[The precautions we're taking] are not so different from what we do on a day-to-day basis. We're using equipment we're comfortable with… what's different is that we're using all of these at the same time."
Doron says her team is prepared to wear protective gowns, head coverings, disposable booties, goggles and N-95 respiration filter masks when seeing suspected Ebola patients. She and her team of four are responsible for educating Tufts' staff about Ebola and creating plans to deal with cases of exposure.
She's been working to get the word out to both patients and staff—from lab workers, who have been instructed to use a high degree of caution with samples— to front line staff, who have been educated about the symptoms of Ebola and instructed to ask about recent travel history. "Everyone is getting ready," she says.
While they hope it never becomes necessary, the Boston Medical Center is well prepared to see Ebola patients should the need arise, said Nahid Bhadelia, MD, director of infections control at the national emerging infectious diseases laboratory at Boston University.
"When a suspected Ebola patient comes to the emergency room, we identify them… [based on travel history and symptoms]. They are then placed in isolation away from the public, in a negative-pressure room… where the air is circulated back into the room rather than circulating out."
"I think that the important thing is the comfort level of the healthcare workers who work with the patients," Bhadelia continued. "That comfort level requires comfort, training, and drilling," she said.
But Bhadelia is convinced that American hospitals and healthcare centers are up to the challenge. "All tertiary care hospitals are equipped to deal with Ebola," she said. "We've been getting… guidance from CDC. We're all keeping our ears to the ground, but I think we're equipped for this."
Lena J. Weiner is an associate editor at HealthLeaders Media.