ORLANDO, Fla. – In the fight against coronavirus, one of the biggest challenges around the country and in Florida is the need for personal protective equipment -- the masks, isolation gowns and gloves that health care workers need.
Erick Hawkins, the vice president of strategic management with Orlando Health, said their supply of PPE is “in the green.”
“We continue to look at that on a daily basis,” Hawkins said. “We understand what we’re using on a daily basis, and then applying that to the projected patients that we think we’ll have coming our way.”
Not wanting to rely on the traditional supply chain, Orlando Health has come up with innovative ways of getting it.
"We have partnered with the University of Central Florida to 3-D print some of these items that were in scarce supply," he said.
A shortage of test kits has also been a problem nationwide, but Orlando Health created a solution there as well.
“The first type we use is an internally developed test that our pathology department and laboratory department created, so that was incredibly useful as we worked through some of the initial backlog and now we have some of the commercially available tests that we’re using as well,” he said.
Since the shutdown, Hawkins said hospital visits are down dramatically, which has hurt their bottom line, but offered more opportunities to prepare for COVID-19.
“The level one trauma center isn’t busy any more because people aren’t driving on I-4 and getting in accidents, so that’s created an opportunity for us to re-deploy staff to make sure we are managing the disease,” he said.
Hawkins said Orlando Health’s internal model for coronavirus shows the virus has peaked in the four counties they serve: Orange, Osceola, Lake and Seminole.
He said they are currently preparing for a second and third peak when the community re-opens.