Frequently Asked Questions

Community Engagement Virtual Meeting - Thursday, April 16

Question #1: How many positive COVID-19 cases are in Tulare County? How many people have died from COVID-19 in Tulare County? How many have recovered? How many COVID-19 positive patients are at Kaweah Health? How many people has Kaweah Health collected specimens from for COVID-19 testing?- Watch Video

As of April 16, there have been 372 positive cases of COVID-19 in Tulare County. Of those, 17 have died and 22 people have recovered. As of April 16, Kaweah Health Medical Center is caring for 23 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19. As of April 16, Kaweah Health has collected 1,977 specimens. Of those, 173 have tested positive for COVID-19, 1,676 have tested negative and test results are pending for 128 patients.

Question #2: What is Kaweah Health doing to help Redwood Springs? - Watch Video

Since concerns surfaced last week that state and local health officials might close the Visalia nursing facility due to a lack of staffing, Kaweah Health, along with Sierra View and Adventist Health Tulare, provided immediate staffing assistance over the weekend. Kaweah Health nursing staff also provided assistance on Monday and Wednesday. Kaweah Health has compiled a list of approximately 25 Registered Nurses, Licensed Vocational Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants, Medical Assistants, etc. who are ready and willing to help care for patients at Redwood Springs, if needed. Additionally, Kaweah Health has also provided technical support, personal protective equipment, and Kaweah Health’s recently retired Director of Nursing Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Services has come out of retirement to provider leadership support to Redwood Springs.

Questions #3: In light of the new outbreak at Lindsay Gardens, what is Kaweah Health doing to keep its skilled nursing patients safe? - Watch Video

To date, Kaweah Health has not had a patient in its skilled nursing program contract COVID-19. Kaweah Health put the facility where its skilled nursing program operates on lock down almost immediately, instituting a no-visitor policy. Only patients who are near death may have a visitor. Additionally, Kaweah Health screens its employees there daily when they arrive to work and whenever they return to the facility throughout the day. This includes taking temperatures and checking for symptoms of COVID-19. Employees with symptoms may not enter the building and must quarantine themselves. Two weeks ago, Kaweah Health mandated that all employees wear a facemask at work. Employees are asked to practice social distancing, perform regular and proper hand hygiene, and constantly disinfect surfaces.

Question #4: Should we as a community wear gloves when out in public?- Watch Video

In the hospital setting are our clinicians wear gloves all the time. They're doing that to protect themselves when they're touching fluids, blood, and urine. But they also wash their hands really well then they put on their gloves to prevent infection for our patients. In public, wearing gloves could provide some protection but then you have to remember what you are touching. If you touch your face, even with those gloves, you potentially have taken something that was contaminated and touched your face and so that glove didn't protect you from that standpoint. If in public, the best idea is to clean your hands and carry a hand sanitizer your car. Do not touch your face, and when you get home, wash your hands with soap and water.

Question #5: Can you share information about the plasma anti-virus anti-body testing? - Watch Video

As of April 13, there is not a FDA-approved treatment option. Medical papers have been shared on the different medication approaches that are being considered, like hydroxychloroquine with the Azithromycin and other types of medications. The FDA is playing a very prominent role working with private companies across the country to help facilitate the development of and the access to therapy. Treatments also being studied are antibody plasma from COVID-19 recovered patients. Local trials are being studied in the Central Valley. Additionally, we are also reviewing research development of stem-cell therapy that it would be specifically targeted to the lungs and respiratory related conditions. When a patient seems to have recovered, we give them two COVID-19 tests, 24 hours apart, and if both tests come back negative, patients are transferred to a lower level care.

Question #6: Is Kaweah Health’s in-house COVID-19 testing ready? - Watch Video

Yes. Kaweah Health now has the ability to collect a specimen from any patient inside its Medical Center and test it for COVID-19. Results are available in minutes without having to send specimens to Tulare County Public Health Laboratory. This allows Kaweah Health to do testing of any employee, physician or resident, who may exhibit symptoms of COVID-19. Additionally, Kaweah Health can determine whether someone who came to the Emergency Department, but needs to be admitted to the hospital has COVID-19 prior to admission.

Question #7: If Kaweah Health is doing its own testing, will results be sent to Tulare County first and then allow the County to release information before Kaweah Health? - Watch Video

Kaweah Health does send all in-house testing results to Tulare County. We want them to have a comprehensive profile of the county and they are probably required to report it to the CDC and the State. Additionally, if the patient has been admitted, we share the information directly with the patient and the attending physician. When it comes to our employees, physicians, or residents, all testing and results are provided directly to them by our employee health department.

Question #8: Please share information about hospital beds moved from Fresno County. Does Kaweah Health have hospital beds ready to be used at the Visalia Convention Center?- Watch Video

Fresno Count was planning a large temporary hospital at the Fresno Fairgrounds, but then an assessment was done of the resources that are available in Fresno County and it was determined that they would not build a staff adequately to accommodate 350 beds. Because of the shortage of physicians that we have in the valley, a hundred of those beds were removed and redistributed. The Porterville Development Center in Porterville was designated by the State of California to be an alternative care site. The State is working to bring that facility up to an operational level and we've been told there'll be 250 beds that will be located at that Center and it will be staffed by personnel from the State. The facility will only be used in the event that the hospitals in this county are not able to support the demands of the community. Developing these alternative care sites is usually something that's handled by the local health department in coordination with the California Department of Public Health and the State. Kaweah Health is working with the County through a task force and looking for all other alternative care sites that could be converted into temporary hospital beds if necessary.

Video Clip #9: Comments from Pulmonologist Dr. William R. Winn of Visalia, California- Watch Video

Question #10: Is it true that the current COVID-19 quick test only operates at 60% of the sensitive needed to determine if a patient is positive - If result is positive, results are 100% correct, but if the result is negative, there is a 40% chance that the patient may still have COVID-19?- Watch Video

Dr. David Hewitt, Kaweah Health's medical director of clinical laboratory and Randall Kokka, director of laboratory services, have shared that so much of the accuracy of the testing is dependent on the quality of the specimen collected. If you're doing more of a casual swab of the nose and not really collecting the specimen needed, then you could have a false positive or a false negative. We have heard a reference to a 70% sensitivity or accuracy, but if you collect a high-quality specimen and go way up into your nasal cavities, both sides, the sensitivity is as high as 95%. We have highly-trained nurses and nurse practitioners that know how to do a good swab. There's no evidence the actual Abbot analyzer, platform and test itself has that low of sensitivity, but actually has a very high sensitivity.

Question #11: The community needs to be aware of the local situation as it relates to COVID-19. What efforts will be made to tell the public that social distancing will be needed until the peak or beyond? - Watch Video

It's one thing if it is just you, you decide your own life, but when your actions are putting other people's lives in dangers, to me it's just so irresponsible. I do get on people if I'm out, I will encourage them nicely. It continues to be our message in these sessions with our community engagement people who are doing a phenomenal job with social distancing. Also, we take our 5,000 employees and we make them ambassadors and they go out in to the community and preach the word. We are out there communicating and it's been wonderful to see the community taking advantage of all the information that we're making available on our website and on social media. We take every opportunity we can - again it's social distancing, washing your hands, and don't touch your face.