WBEN: As WNY heads for phase 2 reopening, hospitals stay ahead of coronavirus curve

Released: 6/1/2020 3:24:30 PM

Tom Puckett
June 01, 2020 - 4:00 am

"We had a great plan and some great work from our emergency preparedness folks so it was never a crisis for us," says Chris Lane, President of Buffalo General Hospital. "We always had ample equipment, ventilators, ICU beds, protective equipment, and we were able to mobilize quickly so we could flex our capabilites quickly so it allowed us to not have a concern related to that."

Lane says there is a current downtrend in the number of COVID patients, which he credits to social distancing.

When it came to preparing for a potential surge, Lane says the hospitals mobilized units in different ways. "Be it additional ICU beds or telemetry beds, we increased our capacity to handle that. At one point, we had ten units to treat patients, we're down to three units, which is great to see," says Lane. "We took an inventory of beds from an availability and capability standpoint, we're looking throughout the hospital for where that inventory was and having it readily available, and bringing in new equipment if need be. We brought in 100 new beds in the event of the surge."

Listen to the full interview at https://wben.radio.com/media/audio-channel/chris-lane-buffalo-general-hospital.