The following is a news release from Star Valley Health

Star Valley Health has been meeting in response to COVID-19 since January. It currently meets on a daily basis in continued planning as it prepares to care for the community during this pandemic. Patrice Baker, Wyoming Department of Health nurse, frequently joins our task force meetings. We are on daily calls with the Lincoln County Emergency Preparedness Incident Command and in close coordination with other local and state officials on this response.

We understand that these times are scary and uncertain.  We hope to alleviate some of these concerns and do take this situation seriously.  These are some of the steps that Star Valley Health has taken to date, to care for the community:

• • A COVID-19 hotline (885-5008) is available for community residents to call, get questions answered and discuss symptoms with a healthcare professional.
  • Assessment tents are operational in Alpine and Afton to screen patients for respiratory symptoms. This includes COVID-19 testing in addition to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and strep.
  • In person clinic and outpatient medical visits are largely being transitioned to telehealth visits where the patient can connect with their provider and receive care without leaving their home. Our providers are also able to meet with patients over the phone if they don’t have the capabilities to connect via tele-health.
  • All visitors and staff are screened for symptoms upon entering any of our facilities.
  • COVID testing has followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and prioritized testing based on high priority groups: those that are severely ill and/or at major risk of serious illness, long term care residents, healthcare workers and critical infrastructure workers. Symptomatic patients outside of these high priority groups, defined as a fever and one of these other symptoms: sore throat, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath or body aches, are now individuals that may meet criteria for testing whereas previously these patients were asked to isolate for 14 days. Testing will be expanded or contracted based on the availability of testing supplies nationwide.
  • Star Valley Health can implement a plan to increase its inpatient capacity within the hospital first. There are areas within the current buildings that can accommodate double the current 22 beds that the hospital has. The limiting factor would be the availability of nurses and providers which is a true problem nationwide.
  • Letter to the community requesting the Star Valley part-time residents to shelter in place, in order to mitigate the spread of the virus.
  • Continued relationships with referral partners that will accept our patients if they require a broader scope of care.  These relationships have been strong and reliable for decades.
  • We have reached out to other distributors & health care facilities and are receiving supplies through the government, along with a huge support effort from Star Valley residents to receive more supplies.
  • We have evaluated our ventilator capacity and are able to handle 7-10 patients and have expanded the number of rooms that are now negative pressure to help ventilate the air distribution in preparation for COVID-19 patients.
  • Star Valley community communication efforts include but are not limited to: newspaper ads (full back page 4/1/20), radio ads, interviews with our providers discussing symptoms, prevention, social distancing & telehealth among others. Our website has been updated to include a COVID-19 link on the main page & a dedicated COVID-19 web page (http://bit.ly/SVHCOVID-19) that has updated SVH stats, symptoms, information, & links to the Wyoming Department of Health & CDC. Our social media channels are also updated regularly with new or pertinent info regarding COVID-19.
    • We are encouraging Star Valley residents to follow our social media channels and learn more through our COVID-19 web page. These mediums offer education & prevention regarding the coronavirus.
  • We are working with government entities and community business partners to distribute our information.