Med Center's Biocontainment Unit

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:52 pm

OWH wrote:CDC director to tour biocontainment unit

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be in Omaha on Monday for the unveiling of a new biocontainment unit at the Nebraska Medical Center.

Spokesmen for Gov. Dave Heineman and the CDC confirmed that Gerberding plans to tour the new facility and participate in a press conference.

The specialized 10-bed isolation unit in University Tower, funded in part by federal and state bioterrorism dollars, is thought to be the only one of its size and type in the United States.

"There are two others," said Terri Teuber, the governor's spokeswoman. "But neither is a 10-bed unit."

Teuber said the unit has a special air intake system and is to be used for treating people with infectious diseases, like avian flu or SARS, or for victims of a bioterrorism attack.

Glenn Fosdick, the hospital's president and chief executive officer, has said that Emory University in Atlanta has a smaller unit of this type. And CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., has something similar.

"But I'm not aware of one like the one being unveiled on Monday," Skinner said.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:18 pm

OWH wrote: Med Center unveils biocontainment unit

The director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was among the first to tour a new biocontainment unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

"I am impressed," Dr. Julie Gerberding said Monday as Gov. Dave Heineman and hospital and university officials unveiled the unit, billed as the first of its kind in the United States. "What we're looking at today is just one of many, many successes."

The new unit, on the seventh floor of University Tower in space that once housed pediatric transplant patients, has five rooms and 10 beds. It is designed to treat patients with contagious and deadly diseases such as smallpox and avian flu while preventing the spread of infection.

The unit features a negative air-flow system that sucks potentially contaminated air from patient rooms and hallways, pulling it away from the rest of the hospital and pushing it through special filters and UV rays before sending it outside.

John Sibley, Kiewit Construction's manager on the project, said the air in patient rooms changes completely about 15 times every hour.

The unit also has double interlocking doors, walk-through showers to disinfect staff and special sanitation equipment for sterilizing the outsides of specimen containers that need to leave the unit for analysis.

With capacity for up to 10 patients, the unit is believed to be the largest such facility in the country - and the only one intended for public patients.

Gerberding said no other states are developing such facilities, and the only others that exist are two-bed units for military researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md., and for CDC personnel at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

While many hospitals have isolation rooms for tuberculosis patients, she said, none has entire isolation units such as the one in Omaha.

Gerberding praised the planning and passion of the people involved, called the project a "national treasure" and the people who will staff it "health protection heroes." She said the unit could serve as a model for others across the country and may help the government gauge how many facilities ultimately are needed.

Pat Lenaghan, the nurse who helped design and now runs the unit, said it cost about $1 million to construct and a few hundred thousand dollars for special training. The bulk of the money came from federal public health and homeland security grants.

Lenaghan said 15 registered nurses and 14 respiratory therapists and technicians volunteered to staff the unit. They work in other areas of the hospital and are on call around the clock.

They have received special training on 11 major diseases and bioagents: anthrax, botulism, plague, smallpox, tularemia, viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as ebola virus), severe acute respiratory syndrome (or SARS), monkeypox, avian influenza, and drug-resistant strains of staphylococcus aureus and tuberculosis.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:56 pm

in-forum.com wrote:"We hope we never have to use it, but if we do need to use it, it's here," said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding.

Most likely tuberculosis patients will make up the majority of use. CDC will monitor its use to see if other units are needed around the country. Hopefully having the unit will invite more research on bioterrorism here in Omaha as we become known for this research.

Post by **Omaha Cowboy** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:00 pm

Yikes..Sorry for the double topic thread..

Ciao..LiO....Peace

Alt(Bayern)München · Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:27 pm

Although this is another great thing for the NE MED CENTER, and raises awareness of Omaha on the national scene...
I have to wonder how does one "contain" an "epidemic" with 14 beds TOTAL in a country of 300,000,000 +/-?
I have to think if there ever was an actual large outbreak of "the plague", or Ebola, or a previously unknown natural bio-threat, or worse yet a "bio-terror" attack...there would be more that 14 people nationwide infected before the country even realized it was happening?!?

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:40 pm

True. But in that case the whole hospital would be used. Hospitals were required to make plans for such disasters. Nebraska was already way ahead in the planning stages and was one of the first states to complete it.

My brother also works at the Med Center - a pharmacist in the Oncology ward which is on the 7th floor and they will handle this ward also (along with the psych wing on the 7th). When going through the training they joked about how little this really may be used. But as you said - this is ward is great to have - the nation will be looking at Omaha to see how things should done!

Asten · Post by **Asten** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:41 pm

Twiztid1 wrote:That's awesome! But I wonder how much they will actually use it.

Ah, this is one of those things that it's great to have, and even better if it sits empty the vast majority of the time.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:07 pm

Only to get better with the second research tower.
There are also plans on turning 42nd street into a 'grand entrance' to the University. I haven't seen what happened to those plans they proposed a couple years ago.

jcitta · Post by **jcitta** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:31 am

I go to Med School at the Med Center. The plans for the new education buildings along 42nd street are alive and well. Actually, you can look forward to them starting rather soon. They are gonna slow down and reroute the trafiic on 42nd st. in front of there, and put skywalks and all kinds of stuff there. They are gonna tear down the college of nursing and college of pharmacy and build the new buildings there. I cant find the plans for it, but you know if the Med Center is gonna do something, it will be big.

Post by **BRoss** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 6:57 pm

Omaha biocontainment unit inspected by feds

There are no immediate plans to transfer Ebola patients to the Omaha hospital, said Dr. Philip Smith, medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit.

But the Omaha medical center's 10-bed biocontainment unit is considered to be the largest quarantine and treatment facility in the country and could be used if officials discover an Ebola-sickened traveler in the region.

I didn't realize UNMC was the largest quarantine facility in the country.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 9:13 pm

If I remember, didn't they get good Federal funding for that a few years ago as a part of a project for national security?

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Sun Aug 03, 2014 12:53 pm

HR Paperstacks wrote:Omaha biocontainment unit inspected by feds

There are no immediate plans to transfer Ebola patients to the Omaha hospital, said Dr. Philip Smith, medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit.

But the Omaha medical center's 10-bed biocontainment unit is considered to be the largest quarantine and treatment facility in the country and could be used if officials discover an Ebola-sickened traveler in the region.
I didn't realize UNMC was the largest quarantine facility in the country.

Largest CIVILIAN facility. The Army has more beds.

The government gave them some cash to support it. Don't think this was an ongoing grant.

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:01 pm

Round 2 at the Biocontainment Unit.

http://www.livewellnebraska.com/article ... b2370.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Post by **Brad** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:18 pm

I merged the Ebola and UNMC Biocontainment threads together.

jessep28 · Post by **jessep28** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 2:12 pm

I'm far from the conspiracy crowd in all of this. Part of me wonders though why If any U.S. hospital equipped for strict isolation can treat Ebola virus, why are they sending patients to these specialized biocontainment facilities? Is it because these patients are insured and it's an opportunity for UNMC, Emory, etc to recover some of the capital costs of building and maintaining them over all these years? I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like $50,000 a day to be a patient there.

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:39 pm

jessep28 wrote:I'm far from the conspiracy crowd in all of this. Part of me wonders though why If any U.S. hospital equipped for strict isolation can treat Ebola virus, why are they sending patients to these specialized biocontainment facilities? Is it because these patients are insured and it's an opportunity for UNMC, Emory, etc to recover some of the capital costs of building and maintaining them over all these years? I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like $50,000 a day to be a patient there.

Treating Ebola is like treating Pneumonic Plague. If you are the hsopital in Los Alamos or the University of New Mexico Hospital, it's another day that ends in Y. Anywhere else, and it's step and fetch it stumbling around. Even Mass General would smoke the first couple of attempts. You just need to get it absolutely correct. Every time a new place tries, it has a learning curve (as demo'd by the cluster that happened in Dallas.) If Dallas is an example, it is really a small example. What if this guy had gone home to Brooklyn and ridden the subway to the hospital? Now you are talking 1000's of freaked out New Yorkers who will be crashing the doors of the ED's convinced that they have it.

By sending them here in a controlled environment, people who are trained to deal with contagion deal with it. They don't let people out of quarantine just because. They don't get a travel history of having a dying pregnant woman in his arms 4 days ago, and just let him leave the ED.

Now, why we are letting people go there and return without quarantining them at the entry point is another question. Like the EVD68 virus that is paralyzing kids that we now find out is spread from the various central american illegal immigrants, why are we not engaging in basic case control and public health measures to stop contact with the virus? Is it because to do so is inconvenient for people?

MSizlack · Post by **MSizlack** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:28 am

The bio unit was built with federal $ and is maintained (partially) with fed funds. The unit at TNMC and Emory have sat empty since they were started because the Feds mandated that they could only be used for what bio containment pts. No overflow pts/in patients could be kept in there. (It was the outbreaks of SARS/bird flu that helped create the units). These people are being sent here so that the pts are quarantined from the public by highly trained staff AND so these units can use what they have been training for. This allows them to refine their procedures and find what works and what doesn't. Issues with how things were done, were found at Emory and here, and things were changed in regards to those to improve safety. No matter how much training and drilling are done, things get overlooked or sometimes are not considered until it's being done for real. Ebola pts like the sh!thead in Dallas will slip through the limited screening process that is in place. He knew he was infected and lied so that he could make it here to the U.S. These things will continue to happen. Ebola is a dangerous virus, but here in a 1st world country, it will be relatively easy to contain and treat. So as these bio units refine their methods on treating the few Ebola pts that continue to come here, they are also preparing them for the next "bug" that happens.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 4:58 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/us/as ... pital.html

There have been times when Dr. Philip Smith felt pressed to justify the existence of the biocontainment unit he opened almost a decade ago in an empty wing of Nebraska Medical Center. After all, the unit’s 10 beds sat empty for years, its team of specially trained doctors and nurses leaping into action only for periodic drills.

But with the arrival of two Ebola patients in the last six weeks, any doubts about the unit’s worth have vanished. Not only is it playing a central role in treating Americans returning from West Africa with the lethal disease, but Dr. Smith, the unit’s medical director, and his team members are fielding dozens of calls daily from anxious health care workers around the country who are suddenly eager to tap their knowledge about handling dangerously contagious patients.

guitarguy · Post by **guitarguy** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:35 pm

Have to admit watching them talk about the NMC on cable news has been pretty cool! Really makes Omaha seem like a cutting edge city.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:00 pm

Another patient is ebola free thanks to Nebraska Medicine!

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:02 am

Third patient headed to Omaha for treatment.

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Sat Nov 15, 2014 8:01 am

Omaha - Ebola Capital of North America!

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Sun Nov 16, 2014 3:58 pm

lmdramos · Post by **lmdramos** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:58 am

According to Nebraska Medicine the patient from Sierre Leone passed away this morning. Marking the 2nd death from Ebola in the US and the first at UNMC.

skinzfan23 · Post by **skinzfan23** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:02 am

lmdramos wrote:According to Nebraska Medicine the patient from Sierre Leone passed away this morning. Marking the 2nd death from Ebola in the US and the first at UNMC.

Wow, just shows how real the virus is.

Post by **Brad** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:14 am

They said this most recent patient was in way more advanced stages than any of the others brought to the US.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:38 am

Yeah, sounds like they got him here way to late.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:58 pm

http://www.ketv.com/news/unmc-lays-out- ... n/29870272

Gold said the school is putting forth two proposals. The first is what Gold calls a short-term plan that would address urgent needs. A partnership of UNMC and Emory University in Atlanta would start a national education program to train other U.S. institutions in setting up biocontainment units, expedite research of anti-viral medication and vaccines, and increase the number of patients Nebraska Medicine’s biocontainment unit can treat.

The second part is what Gold calls a longer-term proposal that would go toward a freestanding Health Security Center on the UNMC campus -- a project that would cost roughly $300 million. But Gold stresses that right now this proposal is in the very preliminary stages.

“A large academic health center that would educate, that would do a lot of the core research,” said Gold.

The center would also have a biocontainment unit that would be used for simulation and practice, and if needed, be used as an operational inpatient facility. But Gold knows this part of the proposal could be an uphill climb, especially with Congress in lame-duck session and many seats changing hands after the November elections.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 1:04 pm

Plans moving forward on a potential 5 floor national training facility on campus. http://netnebraska.org/article/news/962 ... ases-omaha" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seth · Post by **Seth** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:19 pm

iamjacobm wrote:Plans moving forward on a potential 5 floor national training facility on campus. http://netnebraska.org/article/news/962 ... ases-omaha" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wonder where they would locate this?

Also, I wonder if the paranoid types will start freaking out about this.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:59 pm

http://www.livewellnebraska.com/ebola/u ... e7c10.html

We received a large chunk of grant money for the Biocontainment Unit Education. The other two institutions are Emory in Atlanta and Bellevue in NYC.

MTO · Post by **MTO** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 2:04 pm

So there were four clinics dedicated to treat things like Ebola and now there are three? Wasn't it those three plus NIH?

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 2:10 pm

These are the designated training centers.

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