Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Healthcare Capacity topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lenox Health Greenwich Village outlines testing capacity, surge plans and PPE shortfalls
Summary
Lenox Health Greenwich Village executives reported rising testing capacity through private and regional labs, described hospital surge planning and said N95 masks were the most critical shortage.
Lenox Health Greenwich Village representatives briefed Community Board 2 Manhattan on clinical operations, testing capacity and personal protective equipment (PPE) on the board’s March 2020 virtual meeting.
Alex Hellinger, executive director of Lenox Health Greenwich Village, said the hospital system had been rapidly increasing test processing capacity through regional and private labs. "They started their their initial ability to do tests was about 70 a day ... yesterday they did over 600, and they're expecting to do over a thousand within the next week or so," Hellinger said of Core Lab and partnering labs. He cautioned that reagents and other consumables remained potential bottlenecks.
Dr. Lonnie Levy, assistant director of the emergency department, described current clinical guidance for residents and patients: symptomatic people should seek evaluation when they have breathing difficulty or chest pain; many mild cases are to be managed at home; testing is prioritized for symptomatic patients; and turnaround times were running "between 5 to 7 days" for many outpatient tests at that time. Dr. Levy said hospitals were working on contingency staffing plans and surge units across the wider health system.
Both speakers emphasized telemedicine as an important expansion route. Hellinger said the hospital uses telepsychiatry, telestroke and tele-ICU systems and supported loosening regulations to expand remote care. Private urgent-care providers like GoHealth were already offering testing and appointment triage in the community, hospital staff said.
On PPE, Dr. Levy said: "The toughest part of this from a PPE perspective are the N95 masks. It's really tough." They described strategies to extend N95 use — wearing a surgical mask over an N95 to preserve it and controlled re-use if masks are not soiled — but emphasized the supply remained the most pressing operational constraint.
Why it matters: the hospital’s update clarified who will be prioritized for testing, how long results were likely to take, and where community members could seek care other than an emergency department. Hospital leaders said they were identifying overflow sites and ramping surge capacity, and urged residents to keep a contingency plan with their primary care or urgent-care options.
The hospital offered to circulate additional contact information and digital resources to the board for community distribution.
