UIHC spent more than $641,000 on Ebola response

Since the world's largest Ebola epidemic began in West Africa more than a year ago, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics has spent more than $641,409 preparing to treat an Ebola patient - including producing its own protective gear.

That total includes $135,168 for operational expenses related to the hospital's Ebola response, $505,512 for equipment purchases, and $729 preparing a provisional patent application for the gear it created.

It does not include expenses related to staff training, as they have not been calculated to date, according to UI spokesman Tom Moore. And some costs associated with staff preparations for Ebola patients were not accumulated, according to UIHC officials.

The state to date has not seen an Ebola patient, but the UIHC now is prepared to take one - or a patient suffering from any other infectious disease - if necessary, said Mike Hartley, UIHC emergency management coordinator.

'It's all about being prepared,” Hartley said. 'If anyone in Iowa is going to get a serious infectious disease, we would be the ones who have to be ready to take care of them.”

What started as Ebola-specific provisions have morphed into more broad bio-emergency preparations. The hospital now feels better equipped to handle not only Ebola but diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS, which saw an outbreak in China in the early 2000s, and Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS, a potentially fatal viral respiratory illness first reported in 2012 and now spreading through the Republic of Korea.

'What we have to do here is stay ahead of it,” Hartley said. 'So we're just converting our program into something permanent that can deal with anything that comes along.”

When the most recent Ebola outbreak hit West Africa in 2014, health care centers around the globe took notice. But it wasn't until the United States in September diagnosed its first patient, who then spread the disease to two nurses at the Texas hospital where he was treated, that many hospitals began checking and double-checking their procedures, protections, and protocols.

'We took a very detailed and introspective look to see if we were prepared for something like Ebola,” Hartley said. 'And, like most, we saw gaps. Ebola was not something we had seen in the United States before.”

The UIHC ramped up training and identified a core team of responders including nurses, physicians, infectious disease specialists - even specialized housekeeping staff. Hospital administrators held daily briefings on the status of the current outbreak and offered regular training and informational sessions for employees - both those closely involved and those who would not be directly affected.

UIHC became a training ground for other health care providers across the state, including ambulance operators who might have to transport Ebola patients to the university, Hartley said.

'And we had to buy some things that were specific to enhancing our ability to protect the staff and do safe handling of lab specimens,” he said.

For example, the hospital bought 'powered air purifying respirators,” which look something like bicycle helmets that inject purified air over a health care provider's face in a sealed space, according to Hartley. The hospital installed more bio-secure hood equipment in its laboratories and stockpiled protective gowns and gloves.

'We go through so many changes of gear you can burn through disposable equipment quickly,” he said.

Disinfection also is a huge concern, according to Hartley, and the hospital bought robots capable of casting ultraviolet radiation around a patient's room to disinfect it in under an hour. The hospital bought both large ones and smaller disinfecting light systems for tighter spaces - like ambulances.

When the hospitals and clinics went in search of the best protective gear for its workers, according to Hartley, they found the options and supplies lacking, prompting UIHC staff and seamstresses to create an in-house alternative. They produced hundreds of protective hoods, which the hospital has applied to patent.

'We have put them into our regular stock of personal protective equipment as an option, if necessary,” he said.

Even though Iowa has yet to see an Ebola patient and the deadly virus has faded from the news, the Iowa Department of Public Health - as of June 7 - had 25 people in the state self-monitoring for Ebola symptoms. Those individuals are considered low-risk, Hartley said, but it's the most at one time to date.

'It's not gone away,” he said.

Officials with the U.S. Center for Disease Control visited the Iowa City hospital in February and approved it as 'a safe place to take care of an Ebola patient,” according to Hartley.

'Our capabilities in a short period of time were exponentially improved,” he said. 'We have achieved something very valuable to the state, and we are going to continue it.”

Because, Hartley said, Ebola will not be the last infectious disease to threaten the world, nation, and potentially the community.

'This whole episode has pointed out that we have to be better prepared as a country and have a clearer path on how to do that,” he said. 'We now have a very organized and thought-out system that we didn't have before.”