Reno County health officials, Hutchinson Regional outline COVID-19 preparedness and communications plan

Nick Baldetti, director of the Reno County Health Department, told the commission during its March 10 meeting that the department has stood up a “partial incident command structure” to manage local COVID-19 response and will increase the frequency of public updates as new information emerges.

“We are going to ramp that up,” Baldetti said, describing plans to coordinate messaging with Hutchinson Regional and to use multiple channels — including a county website highlight linking to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, social media and a live Q&A on KWCH — to push accurate, timely information. He said the health department would also contact local radio and TV outlets to reach additional audiences.

Dr. Rex Degner, chief medical officer for Hutchinson Regional Healthcare, said the hospital and the health department have held multiple emergency-preparedness meetings and were planning an emergency drill to walk a mock patient through the system the following morning to check isolation rooms, infection-control procedures and cleaning protocols.

“We’re coordinating our communications through and with the health department so we can come out with a unified message,” Degner said, adding that the hospital is preparing for both an initial case and the possibility of multiple cases in the community.

Commissioners pressed officials on outreach to aging-care facilities after noting high mortality in long-term-care outbreaks elsewhere. Baldetti said the health department would have a “concentrated effort” to reach local aging-care facilities and would stand up the county’s emergency-preparedness committee to include representation from those facilities.

On case investigation and contact tracing, Baldetti said the county employs a full-time disease investigator/epidemiologist and has surge capacity plans to pull clinical staff into investigations if needed; if local resources are overwhelmed, the county would request state assistance.

Chairman Sellers and other commissioners urged officials to be aggressive in public communication and to filter out rumors.

The commission had earlier agreed to amend the agenda to hear the health presentation first and approved that motion on a roll call. Baldetti offered to provide weekly brief updates to the commission on community planning and response.

Next steps: the health department and Hutchinson Regional will continue coordinating public messaging, run the planned hospital drill, and maintain weekly situation updates to the commission.