Almost five months after widespread patient access issues at the University of Vermont Medical Center came to light, hospital leaders said some patients are still waiting too long for screenings, appointments and other necessary medical services.
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, John Brumsted, president and CEO of UVM Medical Center and the UVM Health Network, blamed the lack of progress on staffing shortages and the rise of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the state.Â
“That’s not just us,” Brumsted said of the delays. “It’s across the country, particularly in northern New York. As the need for hospitalization because of Covid patients has ramped up, governments have asked us or even required us to pull back on elective or non-urgent procedures.”
Earlier this month, New York state ordered the health network’s Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital and other hospitals to suspend non-urgent surgeries for at least two weeks.
He pointed to a number of ongoing initiatives that may eventually increase access to care, such as the hiring of 10 travel nurses as full-time workers, even as the hospital continues to employ hundreds of other temporary staff.
The hospital has also added more physical space for patients through the recent reopening of the inpatient rehabilitation unit in Colchester. The health system also rolled out electronic medical record updates that can help patients make and get appointments faster, he said.
Vermont’s Covid-19 hospitalizations, meanwhile, reached a new high of more than 120 on Wednesday.
But the hospital’s staffing challenges remain and have even gotten worse in recent weeks. Late last week, the University of Vermont Medical Center — the state’s only Level I trauma center — instituted emergency staffing procedures after some 400 workers were out, representing a roughly 5% reduction in the hospital’s 8,500-person roster. That number decreased to roughly 300 absences earlier this week.
The policy means nurses can be reassigned to units with the greatest needs, and nurse managers — some of whom have not been on the floor for years — may have to care for patients, among other measures. If staffing levels remain inadequate, hospitals may have to turn patients away and refuse transfers.
Hospital executives said last week they expected to keep the policy in place for about a week. But on Wednesday, Brumsted said the hospital would evaluate the policy on a week-by-week basis.
“When we start seeing the need for beds in our hospitals starting to wane a bit and as we make progress on hiring, we’ll back off,” he said.
The long wait times for outpatient appointments at the medical center prompted state regulators last fall to launch a probe into access to care issues across the state. The investigation does not mention the hospital in Burlington by name but came on the heels of a Seven Days investigation revealing that some UVM Medical Center patients had been waiting for outpatient specialist appointments for weeks or months.Â
State officials said at the time they expected to submit a report to become the basis of legislation to the Vermont General Assembly sometime in January.
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