Rebuilding the Surgery Practice

At Virginia Mason, preparation has begun to resume elective surgeries. Initial steps include communicating with patients on the schedule to identify future potential surgery dates, with a waiting list prioritized according to how emergent the patient’s surgery is. It will not be a flip of a switch, but rather a dial slowly turned to ramp up elective surgeries, based on guidance from the State.

One key area to address is protection of patients from possible COVID infection. With continued PPE and frequent testing of staff and patients, resuming surgeries will be possible. A new ambulatory surgery center is being built in Bellevue, WA, that will support an uptick in surgery demand when it’s operational this summer. 

Virginia Mason has in-house testing capabilities and has been able to test all patients and employees – for several weeks – without turning anyone away. The long-term plan is to have all patients go through a robust screening process. In addition to creating a script for the admission process, the hospital will be doing testing prior to procedures (initially disease testing then later antibody testing). Internal test turnaround time is currently 15 minutes, which will be incredibly helpful to ramping up patients for surgeries in the future.