MOREHEAD, Ky. (LEX 18) — Doctors at St. Claire Healthcare say they have seen an increase in patients in recent days, and it's causing them to make some adjustments.
Dr. William Melahn is the chief medical officer. He says they're currently treating the highest COVID patients compared to any time in the pandemic.
As his team saw cases rising, they devised a system to handle a potential influx of patients.
"Capacity is a function of three things. So it's the volume and severity of patients, how many physical beds you have, and how much staff you have," said Dr. Melahn. "And so we looked at all three of those in this situation and we realized that we were headed that way, so we planned for it, and we went ahead and rolled into a temporary surge and intensive care unit over the weekend."
To help with the increase, they re-equipped a post-anesthesia care unit to make it an ICU room.
Dr. Melahn says over half of their regular ICU beds are currently filled with COVID patients.
