The updates and response to COVID-19 rapidly change each day. As you are responding to the needs of your patients, ASC and community, we are working to provide you with resources to assist you in navigating the pandemic response.
As we begin the week, we realize you are struggling with operations outside of normal, evolving patient care, and a great deal of uncertainty. Your ASC services have decreased significantly as you implement elective vs urgent elective surgery triage, and some of you have closed altogether.
Many of you are working with your local hospitals and incident command on the COVID-19 response. There are outstanding questions regarding inventory, providing alternative services, economic concerns, etc. CASA is working collaboratively with the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA), California Medical Association and other stakeholders on appropriate responses. There are many communications happening with regulators, legislators, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and others on the issues effecting ASCs and the ASC COVID-19 surge response. We will continue to keep you informed as the guidelines and rules evolve.
If you have concerns on impacts to your ASC or questions regarding your response, please reach out to CASA Executive Director, Beth LaBouyer at blabouyer@casurgery.org. We encourage you to visit the links highlighted in the communications below to receive the latest information and resources available.
If you have not yet participated in the ASC survey listed below, please do so as soon as possible. The survey is quick and will be extremely helpful in identifying our ASC response capacity. We've also provided important information from Medline Renewal on mask reprocessing.
As California enters the next phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, the California Medical Association (CMA) and California Ambulatory Surgery Association (CASA) are urging physicians, health care administrators and policy makers to urgently redeploy resources to meet the coming increase in demand for health care services.
CASA and CMA are working to take inventory of ventilation equipment that may be able to be redeployed to hospitals and other facilities dealing with COVID-19 patients. We are also asking centers to offer an inventory of their personal protection equipment, such as masks and gowns, that may also be redeployed in the short term. Finally, we are asking for a census of additional personnel and capacity that may be available through centers.
To help with this rapid inventory assessment, we are asking all of our members to complete the survey as soon as possible.
CASA/CMA Press Release
ASC Inventory Survey
If you have questions, or are having difficulty opening the survey, please reach out to CASA Executive Director Beth LaBouyer at blabouyer@casurgery.org or 530.790.7990. We are finding some browsers or IT security are not allowing access to the survey.
If you haven't been contacted already by your local hospital or local emergency response coordinator, you should reach out regarding your ASC's number of anesthesia machines and the ability to provide temporary emergency ventilation, and the capacity to provide services not typically provided in the ASC environment, This information will be vital, particularly for counties with large outbreaks or limited resources.
Additional Updates
CASA & ASCA Consensus response on COVID-19
All ASCs should adopt the following:
Additional Tools and Consideration
Signs and Posters
Economic Issues