AdventHealth changes policy amid increase in COVID cases

AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division continues to see a significant and swift increase in COVID-19 cases in its hospitals throughout Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake, Polk, Volusia and Flagler counties. Additionally, the daily positivity rate at AdventHealth Centra Care remains at near all-time highs.

Monday morning, AdventHealth had 862 COVID-19 inpatients across Central Florida. This is near the peak of about 900 the health system saw in January.

In response, AdventHealth will defer non-time-sensitive elective outpatient surgeries, such as elective knee surgery, at hospitals throughout Central Florida effective Tuesday, July 27.

This elevated status also means:

• Preapproval from campus medical leadership is required for non-time-sensitive/urgent or non-emergent procedures
• Outpatient surgery sites can continue as scheduled
• Other procedure sites, such as catheterization and endoscopy, can continue as scheduled
• Pediatric surgeries can continue without limitation.

Patient safety, safety of the entire health care team and the ability to care for the community remain the tenets of this and all decisions.

Hospital staff issued the following information.

While the rising number of hospitalized patients is evidence of the risk still posed by the virus in the community, it is not cause for alarm in terms of hospital capacity. The system’s hospitals are designed for flexibility and expandability.

The hospital system has sufficient supplies of ventilators, monitors and other specialized equipment in order to quickly convert spaces in the hospital to both standard- and ICU-level rooms, should they be needed.

Some 94% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across AdventHealth’s nationwide system are unvaccinated.

AdventHealth continues to offer COVID vaccines for the public at six Centra Care locations and is offering COVID vaccines to inpatients at its hospitals throughout Central Florida.