MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU Healthcare announced Friday the completion of its Ebola preparedness Infection Prevention and Containment Unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.
The five isolation patient rooms, self-contained lab and areas for staff to put on and take off bio-hooded safety gear cost the hospital $500,000.
WVU Healthcare’s Ebola Task Force has been working on the secured area of the Emergency Department for the last few months. The equipment, procedures now in place and the secure ventilation system of the unit are based on recommendations and protocols being used at Emory University Hospital and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where Ebola patients have already been treated.
“We basically said, ‘Who’s gotten it right? How did they do it, that’s what we want to do,” explained Dr. Owen Lander, medical director of the WVU Healthcare Emergency Department.
According to the Ebola Task Force members, 70 to 100 medical staff volunteers have trained under Centers for Disease Control recommendations to safely treat potentially infected patients and protect themselves and other emergency room patients from contracting the disease.
“The team that worked on this was phenomenal. We got it all completed so that we’re now ready to treat the patients should anyone show up,” said Scott Bierer, the director of WVU Healthcare Facilities Engineering and Management.
Medical staff procedures to protect themselves are in place. Roger Osbourn, director of safety, WVU HealthCare, said the donning and doffing process alone takes multiple people and at least 20 minutes before treating a patient and after treating a patient.
“Staff would come into the clean side. We would have a donning partner in here to help ensure the person gets the equipment on appropriately,” Osbourn said. “We also have a very detailed checklist that the donning partner would go through to check off that the employee got the protection on the proper way.”
The IPCU is located within the existing emergency department at Ruby.
The designated area within the hospital will be used for screening, management and treatment of potential patients.