PORTLAND, Ore. — Providence Portland Medical Center has opened a new 48-bed emergency health center for low-acuity COVID patients on the unfinished ninth floor of its cancer center tower, the hospital announced Tuesday.
The first patient has already been taken into the floor, according to Providence Portland Medical Center Chief Executive Krista Farnham. The plan is to start with about eight patients on the floor and increase capacity as needed.
The update was completed in partnership with the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) as part of an effort to increase hospital capacity statewide. The omicron wave has pushed statewide COVID hospitalizations to near-record levels.
The OHA licensed the space in January and has provided staffing support to get it operational, Farnham said. The deployment of Oregon National Guard members to take over support roles has also helped the hospital keep its staff available.
The ninth floor was left unfinished when Providence opened the cancer tower in 2008, according to a news release from the hospital. It was anticipated to be needed for some future use, and in early 2020 Providence began converting it into a unit to manage COVID surges.
"We actually ended up building this space ... early in 2020, so it's been available to us," Farnham said.
The hospitalization forecasts for the omicron wave prompted the hospital to take the final steps to put the floor into service, she said. Current hospitalization levels are roughly on par with what Oregon saw during the delta wave, but early omicron forecasts predicted a much higher peak.
"We are hopeful that that's starting to level off," she said, "but being able to open an emergency care center takes time and planning, and so we've been working on that for the last couple of weeks."
The unit is intended to be temporary, and therefore uses temporary walls and open ceiling and cement floor, looking more like a field hospital than a finished one, Farnham said, but the level of care it provides will be the same as in a traditional hospital space.
There's currently no specific timeline for how long the unit will remain in operation, Farnham said. Providence and the OHA will continue monitoring the omicron wave and the number of hospitalizations to assess the need.
