7 Day Forecast
In the last few years, Western New York’s health care employees have worked through a range of significant events. Each has presented a unique set of challenges.
Among them: the Covid-19 pandemic, the lengthy Mercy Hospital strike that shuffled around patients and emergency room volume, as well as a few major snowstorms, particularly the Christmas weekend blizzard of 2022.
Preparations are underway in Western New York for a total solar eclipse on April 8. Here is our complete coverage.
Now, here’s another one: a total eclipse of the sun on April 8, a once-in-a-generation event that could lure hundreds of thousands of people to Western New York.
“In my experience doing emergency management, I’ve never had to plan for anything like this,” said Ryan Hejmanowski, corporate emergency manager at Kaleida Health.
But that doesn’t mean the local hospital systems aren’t prepared and that lessons from prior events don’t apply. Kaleida’s emergency management team has been talking about the eclipse since January 2023, and then started holding systemwide planning meetings with site and department leaders in October. Over at Catholic Health, eclipse planning and conversations with external partners started up to a year ago before it was brought to the system’s internal emergency management steering committee about seven months ago.
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“I mean, this is health care,” said Laura Dewey, Catholic Health’s director of emergency management and safety. “It’s a 24/7/365 commitment to what we’re doing here, so we don’t have the ability to close. So, it’s business as usual for most of our service lines here.”
But there are some exceptions. Many health providers across the area are tinkering with their schedules on the day of the eclipse, shifting non-urgent appointments to the morning hours or rescheduling them for another day in an effort to keep patients off the road during busy traffic hours.
And the great unknown is whether there will be an increase in emergency department volume on the day of the eclipse or in the preceding days, given that the region’s population will significantly increase for a couple days with the influx of visitors.
Niagara Falls will be one of the many hot spots, and the city’s hospital, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, said it is monitoring the situation, but plans to continue with – here’s that phrase again – “business as usual.”
“As we get closer to the event and establish a reasonable weather forecast for the weekend (including the day of the eclipse), we will determine what adjustments (if any) the hospital needs to make, such as rescheduling elective procedures,” Niagara Falls Memorial spokesperson Sean Dwyer said. “Nonetheless, we are the only full-service hospital in Niagara County, and will remain open regardless of the event.”
From eclipse-watching opportunities to working from home, here's what area businesses are doing on April 8.
As for whether frontline health care employees working that day will get to catch a glimpse of the eclipse, that is difficult to know. Dewey noted that there is not “a lot of opportunity in this business to walk away from what you’re doing,” but that workers on a break could be able to view it.
But in many long-term care settings and nursing homes, including at Catholic Health, health care employees have viewing parties scheduled to assist residents to view the eclipse – weather permitting, of course.
Preparing for an increase in emergency volume
For Catholic Health, planning for the eclipse is all about leaning into what is known and what it can control.
For instance, the system knows there will be a significant increase in the area’s population in the weekend leading up to the eclipse and on the day itself. That, at least, creates the potential for increased demand for emergency services.
Parks officials are asking the public to follow staff direction on parking and staying in properly marked designated areas and staying on trails.
“We’re anticipating just those general medical issues that people are going to bring with them, as well as those injuries due to inherently what will happen during large gatherings or what has the potential to happen,” Dewey said. “So that’s the approach that we take in planning for emergency services.”
And with that, that means emergency operations are focused on increasing staffing and supplies during that time.
Hejmanowski said Kaleida also is increasing staffing “as much as we can through the system” to accommodate any potential volume increase. In addition, Kaleida has been ordering more medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and food, as well as topping off its oxygen supplies.
“Just from a sheer visitor volume perspective, that’s going to be the biggest difference and probably the biggest challenge going into this,” he said.
Shifting schedules
If you had a non-urgent medical appointment scheduled for the afternoon of April 8, odds are it has been rescheduled.
Hejmanowski said Kaleida has modified some of its procedure and surgical schedules that day. Most outpatient visits won’t be scheduled after noon April 8, with many of the outpatient clinics doing telemedicine appointments in the afternoon, he added.
“Just so that we’re limiting the possibility of our patients being on the road and potentially getting stuck in any traffic gridlock that may occur,” he said.
It is a similar story at Catholic Health, which will close many of its medical offices between noon and 1 p.m. April 8.
Dewey said Catholic Health was able to shift needed appointments into the morning hours, but, in many cases, patients proactively rescheduled their visits.
Roswell Park is deep into an expansion of its cell and gene therapy research and manufacturing capabilities, a project that positions it as a hub for this kind of science.
“We were able to shift a lot of that volume into the morning hours and still get the work that needs to get done, done, and get people who need to be rescheduled, rescheduled,” she said.
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s main hospital will remain open that day, but the cancer center made preparations to reduce the number of patients traveling that day.
On its website, Roswell Park said patients scheduled for an appointment April 8 at an ambulatory clinic or Care Network location may be contacted about converting the appointment to a virtual visit.
Meanwhile, all appointments, surgeries and procedures with perioperative services, radiation medicine and chemotherapy and infusion clinics will proceed as usual.
For those who are at Roswell Park’s main campus for an outpatient appointment that day, the cancer center has advised them that the best places to view the eclipse will be at Kaminski Park or nearby sidewalks. Inpatients at Roswell Park who want to view the eclipse must discuss it with their care team, the cancer center said.
Does blizzard preparation help?
To prepare for the eclipse, Hejmanowski said Kaleida’s emergency management team did research on the 2017 total solar eclipse. They reached out to hospitals that were in the path of totality then and read after-action reports.
But in many cases, he said, “we’re using a lot of the same steps to plan for this like we would for a blizzard.” That includes constant briefing calls and stocking up on materials.
With some key differences, of course.
One huge advantage in planning for an eclipse is that emergency managers had a lengthy heads-up that it was coming and a timeframe for how long it will last.
“Specifically for this eclipse, it’s unlike a natural disaster event in that we know the exact time and length of time that this will occur,” Dewey said.
With a snowstorm or blizzard, the hospitals might have four or five days of advance notice, with only a projection of when the worst weather could hit.
And once a blizzard hits, hospital leaders know everyone is buckled in for the length of the storm, and any transfer of a patient would be difficult or impossible.
But for the eclipse, more of the challenge is ensuring local residents and visitors can access care if it is needed.
“We have to look at, operationally, how will this impact access to care, our business, and that really comes down to mostly the increased volume, as well as the potential for these traffic issues,” Dewey said.
And some of that won’t become clear until the day of the eclipse.
Jon Harris can be reached at 716-849-3482 or jharris@buffnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByJonHarris.