UK HealthCare concerned after COVID-19 ‘cluster’ develops at Lexington hospital
A “cluster” of cases in one unit at UK Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington has forced COVID-19 testing of roughly 100 employees, according to a video of a Zoom staff meeting.
Every patient in the unit was to be tested, University of Kentucky Infection Prevention and Control leaders said during the Thursday meeting. The concerns were confined to one unit, for which there was an online staff conference call with mandatory attendance, according to the video. Employees were told that “several” had tested positive for the virus since Sept. 6.
The cluster at Good Samaritan occurred as Lexington has been experiencing rapid spread of the virus. The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department reported Monday that there were 171 new COVID-19 cases from Saturday and Sunday. More than 2,000 new infections have been reported so far in September. There were also 60 new cases and one new death reported Tuesday.
There were five employees and two residents who had active infections, according to leaders in the video. Two employees were still waiting for their test results to come back and five were in quarantine. A UK HealthCare spokeswoman said Monday that three more staff members had tested positive, bringing the total to eight.
Employees were told they needed to do a better job of avoiding “high-risk” activities in the workplace.
“I’m afraid that you’re congregating in the break room, and you’re taking your mask off,” said Kim Blanton, infection prevention and control director for UK HealthCare. “We’ve been seeing this for a couple weeks.
“I think we, as health care workers, think hey, I’m protecting myself from the patient, and we forget to protect ourselves from each other. We all are susceptible to this virus, right, and we can get it anywhere.”
Infection Control and Prevention planned to have every employee tested no later than Tuesday, Blanton said in the meeting.
About 100 employees were expected to be tested, but some employees may have already been screened recently, leaders said in the meeting.
“We’re considering this a cluster,” said Brandy Mathews, assistant chief nurse executive at Good Samaritan Hospital. She said that the cluster was limited to that one unit.
Employees who tested positive would get paid time off for quarantining, and the hospital would pay for patients to be tested, Blanton said during the meeting.
“Out of the abundance of caution, we are testing all patients that are currently on this unit,” Blanton said. Testing was not extended to overnight visitors to the unit because the staff wouldn’t be able to track those visitors, Blanton said.
Kristi Willett, spokeswoman for UK, said 91 UK HealthCare employees had tested positive since the pandemic started, and nine of those had come from caring for positive COVID-19 patients.
“UK HealthCare takes the safety of all patients and employees very seriously and has many measures in place to prevent the spread of all infectious diseases,” Willett said in a statement.
UK is the largest employer in Lexington and has the largest student body of any Kentucky university. Thus, it has become one of the driving forces of Lexington’s recent COVID-19 case increases since in-person classes resumed.
Between Aug. 13 and Sept. 14, more than 100 of Lexington’s workplace cases involved UK employees, according to health department data obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request. Three of those cases occurred at Good Samaritan. However, many of the positive cases did not disclose where they worked on campus.
UK has had 1,801 cases among students — including 83 Saturday and Sunday — since it began testing students in early August, according to the health department. UK reported 499 active cases as of Friday. The university numbers lag health department totals.
With the 171 new weekend cases, the city’s total climbed to 7,871 since the pandemic started. The one-month record for new cases in Lexington is 2,538, which was the total for August.
The city has also reported 71 total deaths, 503 hospitalizations and 6,675 recoveries, according to health department data.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 3:44 PM.