As area residents deal with the latest surge in new COVID-19 cases, local health care providers and administrators say they are drawing on lessons learned in the spring to help care for the growing number of patients in the north suburbs.
In Illinois, the latest numbers are stark.
State health officials reported 12,601 new confirmed and probable cases of the coronavirus Tuesday. That was the 12th straight day with more than 10,000 cases. There also were 97 additional fatalities reported Tuesday, the latest numbers available before press time. That brought the statewide death toll to 10,875. The state has been averaging 84 deaths per day over the past week, the highest total since June 2.
The rising number of cases is also being seen locally. In Evanston, hospital admissions jumped 65% in the past week, Mayor Steve Hagerty said Monday.
Dr. Ernest Wang, chief of emergency medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem, said the major difference this time is that the numbers “are massive.”
For example, in the spring wave, 170 NorthShore patients were hospitalized at one time at the peak, Wang said.
“Today we’re already at 140,” up from 18 on Oct. 1, Wang said Monday. “It’s climbing minute to minute.”
“The curve is not bending. It’s not doing anything but going up,” Wang said.
NorthShore University HealthSystem includes Evanston, Glenbrook, Highland Park, Skokie and Swedish hospitals.
At Amita Health St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, President Kenneth Jones said those soaring numbers mean challenges for staff.
This fall, “the entire U.S. is peaking at the same time,” unlike in the spring, Jones said. That means nurses and other medical staff are needed at their home hospitals and can’t leave to help communities experiencing a surge.
However, Jones said, Amita has a lot more testing capacity this time around, and knows “how to treat patients more proactively” to help them manage the disease.
At Erie Evanston/Skokie Health Center, site medical director Dr. Elizabeth Feldman agreed that her staff is practicing the lessons they learned in the spring. They are working with Erie patients to get them the care they need from home.
“We know how to do tele-health, and we can ramp up our tele-health visits for people who are trying to avoid coming in. We can do health care management remotely,” Feldman said.
For example, patients on Medicaid can order a free blood pressure cuff mailed to their house. A doctor can check it with them virtually instead of bringing them into the office, Feldman said.
Patients who test positive for COVID-19 might receive a care package with a thermometer and pulse oximeter, to record their body temperatures and blood oxygen levels and relay those back to the doctors, Feldman said. This too keeps patients at home and lessens exposure.
“One other thing that’s different this time around,” Feldman said, “when we first started it took us a little while to realize our patients may need help with things like rent or housing or food.”
Now, all patients fill out a questionnaire and, if needed, Erie staff connects them with resources to help fill their pantries or stay on top of rent payments.
At the city of Evanston, Public Health Manager Greg Olsen asked that residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 answer calls from contact tracers.
The caller ID should list the incoming call as “public health,” Olsen said.
“If contact tracers try and call, answer the phone,” Olsen said. “That was one of the problems at the beginning, people didn’t want to divulge information. Some people didn’t want to answer any questions or phone call from numbers they didn’t know.”
Hopefully the new call identification with help with that, Olsen said.
In Skokie, Mike Charley, the village’s new director of health and human services, said that Skokie has “prepared for this.”
Skokie has hired additional contact tracers, Charley said, and they have been successful in tracking down how and where the virus is spreading.
“We’re finding that most of the transmission is within family groups, within households,” Charley said. “That’s what our contact tracing investigations are showing.”
That’s why Wang emphasized that residents need to stay home whenever possible, wear masks when they’re out and maintain social distancing.
“The light is at the end of the tunnel,” Wang said. “The light is there. We just gotta get there. The next few months, if the numbers are what they are and keep climbing, it’s going to be very, very, very painful.”
gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com
