Rehab Departments Adapting to Covid-19

During the past three weeks, we have called every one of our customers all across the county. We’ve heard a myriad of ways that rehab departments have been dealing with the temporary disruption of care as usual. The feedback we are receiving ranges from temporary department closure to department relocation away from the hospital to maintain regular cardiac and pulmonary rehab sessions and education.

For those rehabs that are operating, but with social distancing policies, we want you to know that LSI is fully operational and here to support you. We also would like to acknowledge all the extra work and preparation all rehabilitation staffs have undergone over the last few weeks regardless of what decisions have been made; we know you’ve been busy. LSI wants you to know we are here to help and support you. Here are some of the changes we hear rehab departments making:

Smaller class sizes utilizing AACVPR risk stratification guidelines to continue seeing high-risk patients while keeping social distancing in place.
Several programs have paused seeing patients in person but have staff working regular hours to contact patients for health coaching opportunities over the phone.
Many departments have relocated offsite to make it safer for rehab patients coming in for their sessions while distancing them from the higher risk patient population and those coming to the hospital with Covid-19 symptoms and other emergency health concerns.  
Other rehabs have stopped seeing their current patients that have been deemed stable. This has allowed these programs to focus on patients that are just now being discharged from higher risk cardiac procedures that need to get rehab started and would be adversely affected without it. Patients with diagnoses like: Bypass, Valve Replacement, Transplant and LVAD patients are the patient population that can’t be discharged and sent home to “shelter in place” and still have the same success in recovery.
We have heard from some of our customers and are assisting them to temporarily re-purpose their LSI monitoring system to be used in overflow ICU and ER departments at hospitals that are anticipating capacity need with Coivd-19 patients.

This is just a summary of some of the ways we see our customers adapting to the current patient care climate. We invite you to connect with us for tips and to hear more about what rehab departments like yours are doing for their patients during this time. We are here to help!

For more information about converting your LSI system to operate in ICU mode – contact your Regional Director: