New Executive Order Assisting Healthcare Facilities

NELIGH - Healthcare facilities can now utilize greater flexibility to respond to COVID-19 due to an executive order from Governor Pete Ricketts.

Ricketts signed the order on Tuesday, and its purpose is to enable healthcare facilities to expand capacity as the need to treat COVID-19 patients arises. Among other measures, Ricketts' order waives the 96-hour length-of-stay limit and the 25 bed limit for critical access hospitals.

Antelope Memorial Hospital in Neligh is among those facilities, and CEO Diane Carlin says both of those changes will greatly assist the hospital in case there's a large increase in patients who need treatment.

"We're able to expand, but it all depends on staffing levels and how healthy we keep our staff," Carlin said. "As long as we can staff and equip the area, we can expand out beyond the 25 beds."

"The new length-of-stay measures will also assist us, as most of our longer stays are with the elderly patients," Carlin said. "The coronavirus seems to be focusing on the elderly patients needing longer stays, so I think that will help us a lot."

The hospital has taken steps over the last two weeks to ensure the safety of its patients, including limiting visitors to just one per-patient as long as they remain symptom free. 

"We do ask that it be the same visitor the entire time, and each time they come in they will be screened at the doors," said Kelli Osborne, a physician with Antelope Memorial Hospital. "We'll also be asking the questions that are on everyone's mind, such as are they having symptoms like fever, cough, shortness of breath, or extreme fatigue."

And while there has only been one positive case in Antelope County, hospital staff feel they are fully prepared to assist the community if further cases arise.

"I feel right now we've done everything possible we can, we're having daily meetings between our heads of department, and we meet three times a week with the local health department as well," Osborn said.  

"We've been having infection control meetings daily with our doctors and our staff to ensure everyone has been trained and understands how to utilize PPE," Carlin said. "We're lucky to have had the last two weeks to ensure that we're very well prepared and trained, and we want to assure the public that we'll be prepared to assist anyone who needs care."