IOWA CITY, Iowa - University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) is now in Phase One of its Surge Plan to deal with Covid-19.
As a result, the hospital has added 16 beds to its ICU and has boosted ICU staffing.
It's also changed quarantine procedures to allow staff members to return to work immediately if they have no COVID-19 symptoms and have a negative test.
Phase one went into effect Monday. Hospitalizations have set another record surpassing 1,500 as of Tuesday morning.
UIHC will move to Phase Two if admissions continue to surge, which would include canceling most surgeries to keep beds available.
"Gradually increasing that threshold means that we won’t be doing surgeries that we would have done in a timely way," said UIHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Theresa Brennan.
ICU Beds could also be doubled from 100 to 200 if there's no letup in the spike of hospitalizations.
Brennan says a continuation of COVID-19 admission could ultimately lead to more shutdowns of public activity."If the prevalence of this virus continues as is, and the healthcare resources are so stressed, we have to do something that'll decrease the likelihood of people first getting COVID-19, and then subsequently going on to need a hospital bed," said Brennan. "