A Letter to the Community from Denten Park Market CEO, Northwest Health

March 24, 2020

To the Community:

I’m writing today with an update on Northwest Health’s preparation for the presence of COVID-19 in Northwest Arkansas. Our executive and department leaders are monitoring local, state and federal guidance as it is updated in response to the ever-evolving situation. We are prepared to protect the safety and well-being of our patients, our community and our care team.

Admissions staff are carefully screening all patients for COVID-19 symptoms and risk factors of fever with a cough or difficulty breathing and exposure to someone with confirmed COVID-19 or travel from an area with a concentration of COVID-19 cases. As of today, March 24, just over 200 positive cases had been confirmed in Arkansas, with approximately 10 in Benton and Washington counties.

As any patient suspected of having COVID-19 is identified, the individual is placed in a separate room or area away from other patients and given a medical mask to wear. Only a small care team interacts with the patient. The ED/attending physician will determine whether testing is needed and then coordinate testing and the patient’s ultimate disposition in consultation with the department of health, as needed.

Infection control is a top priority. Our staff members are trained in the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE), including medical masks, N-95 respirators, goggles and gowns. We actively maintain our PPE inventory based on the number of patients in our care and we currently have sufficient inventory to tend to our patients. We are working daily to acquire and increase these resources so we are prepared for the event of a surge in patients. We are preserving and conserving our PPE inventory in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

Patients receive care thanks to the skills and compassion of the nurses, physicians, technicians and all members of our team. We understand our responsibility to protect our patients, team members and the community with both resources and practices to minimize unnecessary exposure to infection and we have been restricting visitor access to the hospital since last week as part of this response.  We also discontinued non-essential events, suspended volunteer services and, as of March 23, we have suspended all scheduled, discretionary, non-time-sensitive surgeries to conserve our resources for the delivery of urgent medical needs. Emergency and scheduled, clinically necessary surgeries to intervene in a time sensitive, serious or life-threatening condition will continue. Decisions as to which procedures are rescheduled are being made by the individual providers in consultation with their patients.

Northwest Health – the region’s largest health system with five hospitals – along with all other regional healthcare organizations and caregivers in the community are focused on responding appropriately to this monumental public health emergency. We applaud the local leaders in every community we serve for their actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community and we are grateful to the Arkansas Department of Health for their leadership. The public’s participation in social distancing and staying home is critical to reduce the number of people who are infected. Our hospital is just one piece of the needed action to fight COVID-19.

For factual information about Northwest Health’s preparedness, visit the Northwest Health website at https://www.northwesthealth.com/covid-19.  To learn more about the Arkansas Department of Health COVID-19 response, visit the ADH website, and for in-depth information about COVID-19 visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at CDC.gov.

Thank you to those in our community reaching out to serve others in whatever ways they can now.  By working together and supporting each other, we will emerge stronger than ever before.

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