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March 31 Update: Work-Related Travel Restrictions Extended to May 1, 2020

UW Medicine Work-Related Travel Restrictions

A Message from: Dr. Paul Ramsey, MD, CEO, UW Medicine

In late February, UW President Ana Mari Cauce announced international travel restrictions for the UW community, including staff, faculty and students, to help stem the spread of the SARs-CoV2 infection that causes COVID-19. These UW international travel restrictions remain in place.

UW Medicine faculty and staff are playing a critical role in the community effort to identify and care for patients, track and analyze the spread of disease, and establish protocols and procedures to protect our workforce and patients from exposure. Our clinical care, education and research activities are essential for the local community, and the UW Medicine work is also having a major global impact. We need to protect and preserve the UW Medicine workforce so that we can continue to provide the expertise necessary to address the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To protect and preserve our workforce, UW Medicine leadership has decided to restrict all work-related travel for UW Medicine employees, effective March 9, 2020 through April 3, 2020. Additionally, I encourage everyone to reconsider their personal travel plans to help contain this epidemic. We also recommend that visiting faculty and meetings be postponed, cancelled or held via teleconference. Please read the entire policy here.

I greatly appreciate the sacrifices you are making to respond to this global pandemic. UW Medicine faculty and staff have been local and global leaders throughout these tumultuous times and with your commitment we will lead the way through this crisis. Your current efforts are an extreme example of our mission to improve the health of the public, and I am deeply indebted to each of you.

UW Medicine COVID-19 Update March 8, 2020

UW Medicine Incident Command continues to develop policies and procedures to guide our COVID-19 work and how we interact with patients, families, our staff, and the public. Multiple daily briefings keep our teams across the system aligned as we work toward providing our frontline staff with the tools, supplies and infrastructure they need to adequately address this unprecedented epidemic in our community.

Updates:

We have received additional personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies and will be establishing a process for allocating those supplies to the areas of most critical need. This process will differ from how you typically make requests so that we can closely monitor inventory and best use those supplies.

We have several updated policies and procedures that you need to review and implement. There are also other activities taking place around the system that will be of interest to you and your teams.

  • UW Medicine Travel Restrictions for Faculty and Staff
  • Employee Screening at UW Medical Center – Northwest
  • Patient Screening at UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics
  • Expanded Role for Telemedicine
  • UW Medicine Virology Lab
  • New Policy Statements and Protocols
    • RN Phone Triage Process and Resources for Patient Calls
    • Nursing Protocol for Nasopharyngeal Collection for SARS-CoV-2 testing
    • Scenario-based Assessment and Triage of Staff Exposed to SARS-CoV-2
    • Telework and social distancing recommendations
    • Emergency Procedures for Patients with Known or Suspected COVID-19
  • Situation Report: Local, National and Global COVID-19 Cases

UW Medicine Travel Restrictions for Faculty and Staff: To protect and preserve our workforce, UW Medicine leadership has decided to restrict all work-related travel for UW Medicine employees, effective March 9, 2020 through April 3, 2020. Additionally, we encourage everyone to reconsider their personal travel plans to help contain this epidemic. We also recommend that visiting faculty and meetings be postponed, cancelled or held via teleconference. Please read the entire policy here.

Employee Screening at UW Medical Center – Northwest:  We successfully opened a drive-through clinic to screen and possibly test staff for SARS-CoV-2 on the UW Medical Center – Northwest campus. Over the first two days, we tested approximately 100 employees.

Employees who have symptoms consistent with an acute respiratory infection (such as fever, new cough, and/or new shortness of breath) and want to be screened or tested, must fill out a brief survey and submit it to the screening team. You will be contacted by Employee Health with instructions on how to proceed for testing if clinically indicated. Employees will be tested by appointment only. You cannot be screened and tested without first completing this process.

Patient Screening at UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics: UW Neighborhood Clinics and its Urgent Care centers have expanded their capability for administering the test to screen for COVID-19. Patients with symptoms consistent with acute respiratory infection can now be tested at the clinics. This weekend, our Urgent Care and Primary Care Clinics screened and tested approximately 25 patients.

Expanded Role for Telemedicine: UW Medicine had 105 Virtual Care visits on Friday, March 6, and 111 visits on Saturday, March 7, compared to a normal volume of about 10 per day. About 130 primary care doctors are able to do telemedicine visits and our goal is to have every primary care provider privileged and trained in the next 1-2 weeks with go-lives planned this week and next. In addition, 19 other specialties already offer telemedicine (such as Ob/Gyn, Burns, Psychiatry). Another goal is to rapidly implement telemedicine in clinics with particularly vulnerable populations, including Oncology, Cardiology, Rehab Medicine (ALS and other ventilated patients), and Transplant.

UW Medicine Virology Lab: Our partners in the UW Medicine Virology Lab are expanding and supporting screening efforts for not only UW Medicine but also the local and in some instances regional community as public health and providers ramp up SARS-CoV-2 testing. Please note that only a patient’s physician or healthcare provider can order the test based on the patient’s risk factors and symptoms, please refer to the recommended Testing Criteria on COVID19 Website.

New Policy Statements and Protocols:

  • RN Phone Triage Process and Resources for Patients Calling about COVID-19 

There are resources for nurses triaging patients with suspected COVID-19. This resource includes a decision tree and a list of resources. See RN Phone Triage on our COVID-19 Website.

  • Nursing Protocol for Nasopharyngeal Collection for SARS-CoV-2 testing

Collecting NP swabs is an important tool in the diagnosis of a variety of upper and lower respiratory tract infections including influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2 (virus that causes COVID-19). The quality of the specimen is critical as is the correct collection of the specimen. See Sample Collection for COVID-19 Testing Nasopharyngeal on our COVID-19 Website.

  • Scenario-based Assessment and Triage of Staff Exposed to SARS-CoV-2


The health and safety of our staff, patients, and community is our top priority. For a detailed summary of the UW Medicine Scenario-based Assessment and Triage of Staff Exposed to SARS-CoV-2, please review our COVID-19 Website.

  • UW Medicine COVID-19 Telework and Social Distancing Recommendation

UW Medicine is aligning with the University of Washington policy on telework and social distancing. For details, see the update for Friday, March 6, on The Huddle.

  • Emergency Procedures for Patients with Known or Suspected COVID-19 

This document provides guidance for physicians and staff on assessment and proper PPE precautions for suspected and confirmed COVID-19 emergency room patients. For more information, see Emergent procedures for patients with known or suspected COVID-19 on our COVID-19 Website.

Situation Report: The Washington State Department of Health reports 71 confirmed cases in King County, including 15 deaths, as of March 7, 2020. Across the state, there are 102 confirmed cases and 16 deaths. These numbers continue to change daily.

The CDC will report new numbers for confirmed or presumed COVID-19 cases in the United States on Monday, March 9. Travel health notices have been issues for the following countries and territories: China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong. For the most current COVID-19 country list, please refer to our Current Outbreak List on our COVID-19 Website.

The World Health Organization reports a total of 105,586 confirmed cases globally as of March 8, 2020. In China, 80,859 confirmed cases and 3,100 deaths have been reported.