AtlantiCare achieves better outcomes for COVID-19 inpatients than national average
April 7, 2022
For Immediate Release: April 5, 2022
Having recently discharged its 4,000th COVID-19 inpatient, AtlantiCare looks to further support the community by sharing best practices. Many of the care approaches the healthcare organization implemented through two years of the pandemic have led to significantly better outcomes for hospitalized patients compared to national statistics.
Through the first three patient surges, AtlantiCare’s survival rate for hospitalized COVID-19-positive patients was 90%. The national average was 80.2% during the same period.* An average of 7.95% of AtlantiCare’s COVID-19-positive patients were admitted to the intensive care unit from the start of the pandemic through January 26, 2022. The national average was 16.6% for the same timeframe.**
Edward Hamaty, D.O., chair, Department of Critical Care, AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, saw firsthand the importance of evolving care throughout the pandemic. “We adopted World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health best practices early on,” said Hamaty. “These included providing support to keep patients off ventilators, using steroids in our treatment plan when appropriate, admitting patients who met criteria for being hospitalized, and releasing hospitalized patients and Emergency Department patients appropriately,” said Hamaty.
Additional best practices AtlantiCare adopted included communicating the importance of vaccines and providing vaccines at regional sites throughout the third and fourth surges. “Once vaccinations became widely available, most patients admitted to the ICU for COVID or complications of COVID were individuals who had not been vaccinated,” continued Hamaty. “Our joint effort with the State of New Jersey, Atlantic County, and the New Jersey Air National Guard at the Atlantic County COVID-19 Vaccination Megasite was successful. It was key to preventing COVID infection, serious disease and complications. We continue to focus on keeping our community informed and protected. It is still critical that those who are eligible get vaccinated and boosted. It is still vitally important that we all continue to practice other prevention and safety measures. These include washing hands often and regularly, staying home/away from others when sick. It is also important to seek routine primary and specialty care and to seek prompt care for illnesses and new or worsening health conditions.”
AtlantiCare’s multidisciplinary team has performed daily evaluations and updates for patient care practices. It has standardized COVID-19-inpatient care guidelines six times and continues to do so. AtlantiCare’s COVID-19 Preparedness Incident Command team includes infection prevention, emergency, physicians, nursing, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, laboratory, procurement, food and nutrition, customer experience, environmental services; primary, urgent and specialty care teams; and other clinical and non-clinical roles/departments.
*Based on AtlantiCare’s analysis of published mortality data in peer-reviewed journals.
**Based on AtlantiCare’s analysis of published data in peer-reviewed journals.
-30-
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AtlantiCare is an integrated healthcare system based in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, whose more than 6,000 staff, providers and volunteers serve the community in more than 100 locations in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May and Ocean counties of southern New Jersey. Its vision of building healthy communities together drives its mission of making a difference in health and healing, one person at a time, through caring and trusting relationships. A Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winner, AtlantiCare was also included in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work. AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center was the 105th hospital in the nation to attain the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet™ designation in 2004 and earned redesignation in 2008, 2013, in 2018. Learn more at atlanticare.org or 1-888-569-1000.
