Like most hospitals, the last few months have meant some major changes for the Central Peninsula Hospital, including limiting who can come in and screening everyone for symptoms of COVID-19. They’re also required to test every inpatient and person coming in for surgeries for the disease.
One limiting factor has been how many tests the hospital can process with its current machine and how accurate the results are. The hospital does have a rapid testing machine, but has a limited number of testing kits available and isn’t as accurate as the RNA testing provided at the state lab. Tomorrow night, the borough assembly will consider whether to approve up to $400,000 for the hospital to purchase a new testing machine from Roche Diagnostics, called a cobas 6800.
Bruce Richards, the director of government and external affairs for Central Peninsula Hospital, said staff will be able to test more people more quickly with the machine—about 470 samples every 24 hours.
“Right now, both the hospitals and anybody else who’s sending specimens, they aren’t actually conducting lab tests," he said. "They’re actually taking specimens and those are sent to labs outside the Kenai Peninsula—most to Anchorage, but some even out of state. Sometimes getting those back in a timely manner has been difficult. We’re testing all of our surgical patients, all of our inpatients, and Homer is as well.”
There’s a backlog of demand for these systems, which means about a four to six month wait time. But Richards said there’s some chance of getting it sooner if other buyers drop out of that waiting line, which they could, so the hospital wants to put in an order sooner rather than later. The ordinance before the assembly is labeled as an emergency ordinance and would draw out of the hospital’s Plant Replacement and Expansion Fund. After that, Richards said they’ll look to replace those funds with relief money from the federal CARES Act.
Even if the hospital has to wait four months or more for the machine, Richards said it’ll still have benefits for the community. The virus isn’t likely to go away for awhile, and the machine performs other diagnostic testing functions as well.
The Kenai Peninsula saw about a dozen new cases of COVID-19 crop up at the end of last week and over the weekend, and with the state reopening and relaxing restrictions, experts expect those case numbers to continue to increase. Central Peninsula Hospital is still operating under the guidelines of Health Mandate 15, which sets guidelines for all health service facilities in Alaska. For now, Richards said the hospital will continue to operate by the mandate’s guidelines.
“I think we’re going to continue to operate as we are," he said. "We’re required to test under the mandates anyway. We’re aren’t going to provide procedures to anybody who tests positive. I don’t see us changing any procedures as now. We are following the procedures from the state, and I think the state will be the one that makes changes.”
Anyone going into the hospital is required to wear a mask and will be screened for symptoms of COVID-19, including a fever, respiratory distress and inability to taste or smell. Those showing symptoms are directed to the emergency department or to their primary care provider for further testing.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will consider whether to approve the funds for the new testing machine at its meeting Tuesday at 6 p.m., which will be conducted via Zoom. More information and the code for the Zoom meeting are available on the borough’s website.
Reach Elizabeth Earl at eearl@kdll.org.
