COVID-19 hotspot hospital relies on PartsSource® to support clinical uptime during emergency
CLEVELAND, July 14, 2021 – When 20 ventilators from the State of New York arrived without a pre-arranged delivery time on the shipping dock of Patchogue-based Long Island (LI) Community Hospital at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the hospital’s clinical engineering (CE) team kicked into high gear. The 300-bed, not-for-profit hospital located 50 miles east of New York City was in the thick of the pandemic, with 69 COVID-19 patients on ventilators.
The hospital’s respiratory specialists wanted the new ventilators operational as soon as possible to treat patients with the best case they could provide. But there was a problem. Oxygen hoses were not attached to the machines, rendering them useless.
Richard (Rick) Wilson, LI Community Hospital’s director of biomedical engineering, rushed to the hospital at 3 a.m. and began pulling oxygen hoses off anesthesia machines idled by the cancelation of elective surgeries. He and his team found 10 hoses that way, but they were still 10 short. Wilson knew the odds of finding the hoses through the supply chain were long. Ventilators, along with every accessory needed to make them operate, were at that moment the most sought-after pieces of medical equipment in the world.