A CVMC emergency department RN tests the PAPR system.
June 29, 2020
Dear Central Vermont Community Members,
Central Vermont continues to have a low prevalence of COVID-19. At CVMC, we have not had a positive COVID-19 patient admitted to our hospital in the past 7 weeks.
As Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, reiterated this week, we as a nation are not yet on the other side of this pandemic. Our region is not an island, and so the potential for a resurgence remains.
I would like to thank everyone who continues to adhere to social distancing, masking and other infection prevention recommendations from the Vermont Department of Health – these efforts have a significant impact on reducing the transmission of this virus.
CVMC’s team continues to stand ready to provide the care our community needs and has moved forward by making COVID-19 response systems core to our daily operations. Stated another way, our ability to respond to COVID-19 cases has become our “new normal.”
A few examples of this include educating our staff to use additional Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR) systems. This equipment is reusable and reduces our dependence on the fragile global supply chain for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). These PAPRs protect our team and are more comfortable to wear than the PPE we used early in our pandemic response.
For the safety of patients and staff, CVMC has required COVID-19 screening for everyone entering our facilities since March 21. While this measure is critical to ensure patient and staff safety, methods available to read temperatures have been time consuming and inconvenient for those entering our main facility – especially as the number of patients entering our facilities has increased over the last month.
To address these issues, CVMC is the first hospital in the state to adopt a new thermal technology that will automatically check the temperatures of everyone entering our hospital, as well as the Woodridge Rehabilitation and Nursing facility.
Thermal imaging automatically verifies that patient, visitor, and staff temperatures are in normal range.
Implementing these types of innovations ensures that CVMC remains accessible, safe, and stands ready to meet your current and future health care needs.
With Gratitude,
Anna Tempesta Noonan, RN, BSN, MS
President and Chief Operating Officer
Central Vermont Medical Center