photo by: Chris Conde

LMH Health is pictured in a file photo from October 2018.

LMH Health leaders are now expecting Douglas County’s surge of COVID-19 cases to occur near April 29, which is about 10 days later than once projected.

But the hospital’s chief executive officer is expecting the impacts of the pandemic to last much longer at the hospital and in the community.

“We have to be mentally preparing for not only the moment we are in, but for the next two or three or four or six months,” Russ Johnson, president and CEO of LMH Health, told the hospital’s board of directors on Wednesday.

Johnson didn’t go into specifics — meaning he wasn’t predicting how long stay-at-home orders, for instance, may be in effect — but he said the pandemic is likely to be disruptive for awhile.

“I don’t want to be a downer, but I think that is the reality in front of us,” he said.

Thus far, COVID-19-related cases at the hospital have been sparse. On Wednesday, the hospital was treating one patient with a confirmed case, while two others were under investigation for the virus. Other medical cases at the hospital have been down significantly, as the hospital canceled all elective surgeries during the pandemic.

That lost business has caused the hospital to furlough some workers and retrain others who would be acting in new roles if a surge in COVID patients happens locally.

Hospital board members were given several details about the hospital’s state of readiness. They included:

• The hospital has a plan that would allow for LMH to hospitalize up to 264 people at once. In its history, the hospital has never had more than 144 patients admitted at one time, the board was told. That has meant the hospital has had to create new staffing plans to care for that many patients. It also has had to find some temporary beds. Local Boy Scout organizations have donated about 30 cots for the effort, according to LMH officials.

• LMH has at least a 14-day supply of all its critical personal protective equipment. The hospital was beginning to run low on gloves, but recently received a new shipment.

• The hospital has started using a new UV disinfectant method that allows staff to reuse N-95 face masks, which have been in short supply nationally. New research has suggested that the masks can be safely re-used, if they are sterilized with some of the same UV equipment that the hospital already had in place as part of its surgery center. That program began Tuesday at LMH.

• LMH’s laboratory currently is working on a program that will allow it to run COVID-19 tests entirely in house, meaning the results won’t have to be sent away for processing. LMH received some of the swab tests last week, and the laboratory is currently running quality control tests. Board members were told it is still too early to know when the in-house testing program may begin.

• Wednesday was the first day for a drive-thru oncology program. Cancer patients often need bloodwork and other laboratory tests done on a regular basis. The hospital has created a program where some of those tests can be done as part of a drive-thru lane. Hospital officials created the program because cancer patients often have compromised immune systems and could be at higher risk of contracting the virus.