OMAHA — Nebraska Medicine is essentially implementing their own directed health measure for their hospital system as the number of COVID-19 patients continues to fill up hospital beds.

This means moving, postponing, or even canceling some procedures.

Non-emergency surgeries that require an inpatient bed have been limited since late summer, but the most recent uptick in patients has led them to implement further measures, says COO Cory Shaw.

Starting Monday, December 10th, surgeries that can wait are being reviewed and possibly canceled. There are tiers within surgeries that can wait.

Surgeries that can wait four to 12 weeks without a substantial change in outcome with be rescheduled at Nebraska Medicine at a later date and surgeries that can wait longer than 12 weeks will be postponed and reassessed in 12 weeks for rescheduling.

Nebraska Medicine will be expanding operating room capacity at Bellevue Medical Center and Fritch Surgery Center. This allows them to move patients with less-urgent needs from the main campus to open more beds for COVID-19 patients or other emergency cases.

“We’re really concerned and I think number one, we want to be available for anybody that requires service when it’s needed, and we know as the burden on our two hospitals and emergency rooms grow, that it makes it that much more difficult to care for patients that are in need of other services,” says Shaw. “Patients that have a cardiovascular problem, patients that have a neurological problem, a complex medical situation that requires hospital care, it’s increasingly difficult to get them into a facility or transferred from one facility to another if they need a higher level of care.”

Emergency departments are experiencing a 30% increase in visits and a 10% longer stay compared to this time last year.

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