OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — At 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nebraska Medicine concluded its crisis care standards plan, a decision the hospital system has never before made.

Doctors say they entered into this plan as a precautionary measure, anticipating continued high cases of COVID-19.

“We entered this operational status to be ready,” said Dr. James Linder, chief executive of Nebraska Medicine. “We have not yet reached a peak of COVID-19 in our community and this operational status allows us to respond to any peak and number of cases that we need to support for the community and to do so in a safe manner. ”

During this standard of care, appointments may be delayed and harder to get, surgeries may be postponed, and clinical trials may be suspended. Patient transfers from surrounding hospitals may be refused, medical students and other staff may be used as support staff, and non-patient areas such as classrooms or conference rooms may be used for patient care.

Doctors say that shouldn’t deter patients from seeking treatment. They say this plan allows them to safely care for COVID and non-COVID patients amid the surge.

This plan was adopted in the midst of the omicron surge. Doctors say we haven’t seen the peak yet, but have also seen an overlap with patients who have been diagnosed with the delta variant.

“What everyone understands is what’s different about the omicron variant over a very short period of time, it’s really stressed our healthcare system,” said Cory Shaw, chief operating officer of Nebraska Medicine. .

The surge in omicron cases is not only affecting hospitalizations, but it is also affecting hospital staff.

Nebraska Medicine representatives say they have seen a large number of employees having to call, either because someone in their household has been exposed to or tested positive for COVID, or because they themselves have tested positive. Personnel issues also led to the adoption of the plan.

The Methodist health system faces similar problems. Although they have not entered into a crisis level care plan, they are assessing the situation on an hourly basis.

“We are doing our best and caring for patients to the best of our abilities, but we don’t have the ideal resources,” said Dr. Michele Williams, medical director of the emergency department at Methodist Fremont Health. “We don’t have the places to send patients, we don’t have the beds in our facility that we would like to have.”

Methodist doctors say they are seeing an “astronomically high percentage” of positive COVID tests.

They say that while they treat patients to the best of their abilities, they get tired.

“We are used to taking care of sick patients, sad situations, seriously ill patients, but what we are not used to is dealing with the number of people dying from the same condition,” said the Dr. Sumit Mukherjee, Pulmonologist and Critical Care Coordinator for Jennie Edmundson Methodist Hospital, said. “On December 28, I declared that a third of our intensive care had died of COVID and I took a third of them and put them on a ventilator, all over a 30 hour period.

On Thursday, CHI Health released a statement saying it would not be adopting crisis care standards.

“Our 14 hospitals in Nebraska and southwestern Iowa are exhausted, but our staff continue to provide heroic care to the communities we serve. We are in emergency care, which means we are adapting daily to the patients, staff and bed availability Our patient load and staffing needs have increased exponentially Currently we have 223 COVID-19 patients in the hospital 91% of those on ventilators are not not vaccinated. Omicron is impacting our workforce. Currently we have 379 employees in quarantine or have tested positive for COVID-19. This is definitely putting a strain on our system. Throughout the pandemic, we have assessed surgeries based on each patient’s critical needs – delaying cases that can safely wait. That has not changed,” the statement read.

Doctors in all hospital systems are asking the community to wear a mask and get vaccinated.