Chattanooga hospitals are planning a “measured” restart to elective procedures in the first week of May, assuming Tennessee’s governor allows his executive order banning those procedures to lapse, according to hospital officials.
For now, none of the area’s three major hospitals – Parkridge, Erlanger and CHI Memorial – plan on treating the same volume of patients they were before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, but officials said during a media briefing Friday morning that they’re confident hospitals can safely return to performing some non-emergency procedures.
“We see this as a dial, not a switch on and off,” said Dr. Tim Grant, chief medical officer of Parkridge Health System, adding that the hospitals “understand that we may need to dial up and dial down the number of procedures that we’re able to do” based on their supplies, bed and ventilator availability and COVID-19 testing capacity.
Chattanooga’s hospitals stopped performing elective procedures after March 21 in order to preserve supplies and capacity for a possible surge in COVID-19 patients. Hospital finances took a devastating blow, since such procedures account for a large portion of revenue.
The health systems will continue with current policies for screening everyone who enters their buildings, using face masks and other personal protective equipment and restricting visitors except for unique situations, such as labor and delivery or end of life.