BOISE, Idaho — The Gem State activated Crisis Standards of Care (CSC) back in September due to a surge in COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization.
Now, St. Luke's health officials say within the past week, the hospital is seeing a reduction in the number of COVID-19 patients needing to be hospitalized. The hospital's capacity continues to be high with non-coronavirus patients taking up more hospital beds.
In spite of this, officials say Idaho is closer to moving out of CSC and into recovery mode.
"I'm using that term very specifically," said Dr. Frank Johnson, St. Luke's Boise Chief Operating Officer. "Recovery is going to be very important to our teams here in the hospitals who have worked very hard over the course of the last 12 weeks and more specifically the last seven weeks with crisis standards. They've worked very hard to help our community recover and heal."
On November 10, 20 COVID-19 positive patients were admitted to ICU units within the St. Luke's health system, according to the St. Luke's website. 89.47% of those were unvaccinated.
St. Luke's officials also say at least 5,000 surgeries have been delayed because of the surge in COVID-19 patients, but they are working to get caught up on those. They say it could take up to six months to fully catch up.
