Pen Bay Medical Center, Waldo County General Hospital CEO Mark Fourre sent the following March 31: As Maine continues to grapple with the increase in COVID-19 cases, we at Pen Bay Medical Center (PBMC) and Waldo County General Hospital (WCGH) continue to prepare for the demands that COVID-19 will place on our local health care system. 

We are fortunate to have Cheryl Liechty, MD, guiding our efforts.  Cheryl is an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist who has worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and who successfully led PBMC’s response to the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009. Drawing on Dr. Liechty’s experience, our team has taken a number of actions to strengthen our ability to meet this challenge. For example, we have:

• Established testing stations outside of the main hospital buildings. This allows patients who need non-emergency evaluation for COVID-19 to be seen in a safe environment. This protects patients and staff throughout the hospital and takes pressure off the Emergency Department. To be tested, people must first contact their primary care provider, who will then make an appointment for testing, if appropriate. These sites accept referrals not just from our own clinicians, but also from private practice offices across our catchment area.
  
  
• Significantly increased the number of negative pressure rooms at both hospitals with even more to be operational soon. These rooms control airflow to prevent cross-contamination of other areas in the hospital. 
  
  
• Adjusted the Emergency Department workflows at both hospitals to optimize rapid triage and segregation of acute respiratory patients from other patients. This included construction to reconfigure the waiting rooms.
  
  
• Cross-trained medical staff who do not normally work in an acute setting to ensure that we have enough people in place to respond to any surge in COVID-19 cases.
  
  
• Adopted CDC guidelines for keeping our care team members safe. At this time we have adequate supplies of personal protective equipment. We anticipate that we may face supply chain challenges in the future and are working on solutions. 
  
  
• Adopted a new visitation policy that restricts who can enter the hospital and our long-term care facilities at the Knox Center and Quarry Hill. While disruptive, these measures will help keep our facility and those inside safe.
  
  
• Expanded our telehealth capacity in primary care practices, with specialty practices to follow. This will allow us to continue to serve the health care needs of non-COVID-19 patients in a safe way.
  
  

Because of these and other efforts of so many dedicated people at PBMC and WCGH, I can report that we are prepared to meet this challenge.

And yet, as we watch dramatic escalations in COVID-19 cases elsewhere in the country, especially in the New York metropolitan area, we have reason to be hopeful that our experience will be different.

The basis for that has a lot to do with the physical and human geography of where we live: Maine is not a densely populated state, and we are not a transportation hub – two key factors in how fast and wide an infectious disease spreads.

Moreover, our community has embraced social distancing, both voluntarily and under state mandate. Gov. Janet Mills put in place social distancing measures early on and extended those measures this week by closing all “non-essential” businesses for 14 days. 

Experience tells us that this will reduce the spread of the disease – but it will not eliminate it.

The goal is to ‘flatten the curve’ – that is, spread the cases of COVID-19 out over time so they do not hit the hospital all at once and overwhelm our ability to respond. In the coming weeks, we will undoubtedly see a large number of COVID-19 cases in our community.

There will also be days when the number of cases hold steady or even dip. We must not let these ‘good news’ days lull us out of our vigilant state. As long as COVID-19 is active – and until we have a vaccine – the best way to protect your family, your community and yourself is to rigorously practice social distancing and good hand hygiene. 

I also want to encourage you to stay informed with the most up-to-date information about COVID-19 by regularly visiting the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control at www.cdc.gov, the Maine Center for Disease Control at www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc, as well as the hospitals’ websites at www.pbmc.org and www.wcgh.org.

Here at PBMC and WCGH, we know there are more than 100,000 people in the Midcoast region relying on us to care for them if they become infected.

Over the past several weeks, dozens of our care team members have stepped up to do whatever it takes to prepare to take care of our COVID-19 patients, understanding this may put them at some risk.

Many have accepted reassignment and stepped into different roles to help where they are needed most.

Their courage and honor should inspire us all. It is hard to overstate how proud I am to lead a care team that is so fully committed it its community.

I also know that you, in turn, have inspired our care team members. The messages of gratitude and encouragement that many of you have posted on social media give their work meaning. I encourage you to keep those coming. They have also been encouraged by so many in the community who have made in-kind donations of things like surgical masks and daycare services for our care team members with children. 

This coming together as a community is no small matter. We know there are difficult weeks ahead, and our ability to confront COVID-19 will certainly depend on the preparations and medical care that PBMC and WCGH will provide. But it will also depend on a resilience born of community spirit. From what I have seen, we are strong in both.