Michigan hospitals back on track with postponed surgeries

Several Michigan hospitals that postponed elective surgeries over the past few weeks due to a surge in COVID-19 cases are largely back on track. 

During the week of April 5 through the week of April 12, Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, Spectrum Health's Grand Rapids hospitals and Mercy Health Muskegon Medical Center were among those postponing surgeries.

Now, the state's COVID-19 case rate and hospital capacity are beginning to drop. Michigan's seven-day average of new cases fell from 551.8 per 100,000 people April 13 to 483 per 100,000 April 21, according to CDC data

As of April 22, there were 23 hospitals at 90 percent capacity or more for COVID-19 patients, down from 35 hospitals April 19, local ABC affiliate WXYZ reports. 

Spectrum Health's Grand Rapids hospitals did not defer any surgeries April 22 and did not anticipate having to do so next week, a spokesperson said in an email to Becker's. A small number of inpatient cases last week and this week were postponed at Mercy Health Muskegon, though the hospital does not anticipate the need to postpone further "unless this trend reverses and we start going back up," a spokesperson said. 

Henry Ford Macomb has also made progress, Adnan Munkarah, MD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Henry Ford Health System, said during an April 22 news conference. 

"We are back in a much better situation than we were 10 days ago. At Macomb, we are still doing time-sensitive procedures including cardiac procedures, procedures that are cancer-related," he said, adding that the hospital is still adjusting its schedules and some other procedures had been postponed. The rest of Henry Ford's hospitals "are in a place where we are able to provide non-COVID-19 care," Dr. Munkarah said.  

Michigan Medicine was still postponing a small number of surgeries as of April 23. "Michigan Medicine has temporarily decreased by a small amount the number of daily inpatient surgeries," a spokesperson said in an email to Becker's. "We are constantly monitoring the evolving situation to make sure our scheduling aligns with our staffing and room availability, with the safety of our patients and staff always remaining our highest priority." 

 

 

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