Seattle’s Harborview will accept overseas Ebola patients

Harborview Medical Center is now the fifth hospital in the U.S. offering to take in Americans infected with Ebola.

“We’re expecting all healthcare facilities to be prepared, to identify, manage possible Ebola cases including Harborview. Harborview is extending their services to patients overseas as well,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin with Public Health – Seattle & King County.

“We’re preparing for the eventuality that there will be more persons who are on humanitarian missions who are providing direct services that are essential to get this outbreak under control. This is not a local problem here in King County.”

Duchin said the most common scenario is patients who think they might have Ebola, but don’t.

“We may or may not see a real Ebola case, but certainly the potential exists. You can’t quantify it,” he said.

The hospital has done extensive isolation quarantine planning in the past for Anthrax, smallpox, and SARS, among other diseases. It also has plans in place for people outside the hospital setting, such as for visiting family members.

Duchin said Harborview is also working closely with Sea-Tac Airport.

While nothing is certain, Duchin said Harborview and other hospitals across King County are working together to make sure healthcare officials are trained and ready. He touted Washington’s healthcare community as very high-functioning.

“We think the risk is very low,” Duchin said. “This is a hard disease to acquire. It doesn’t transmit easily and there are very concrete steps taken to reduce the risk of transmission, a community outbreak is extremely unlikely, but I would never say the risk is zero.”

So what happens if someone in the Seattle area begins exhibiting symptoms of Ebola?

Harborview Medical Center’s director of infection control, Dr. John Lynch, says evaluation of the risk starts with a question: Has the person traveled to or from West Africa in the last 30 days?

“The basic idea is first to capture those patients who may be at risk. So do you have a symptom? If you have a symptom, simply asking the question: Were you in West Africa in the last 30 days? We know that the incubation period is between two and 21 days, so we think that 30 day, 1 month thing is an easy thing to ask.”

The symptoms of Ebola may not stand out on their own. Lynch says it can look a lot like influenza, which is why it’s important to find out the person’s travel history. If the patient says they have been in West Africa, Lynch says then it’s important to employ appropriate precautions.

“The most important thing is that the patients are separated away from other patients, and that the health care workers use the appropriate personal protective equipment. We would just need to use impermeable gowns, gloves, eye protection, surgical masks, and probably booties.”

Harborview is trying to prepare in advance so that if doctors do see a case of Ebola, the patient isn’t misdiagnosed and released, as was the case on the initial visit for the infected man in Dallas.

“Sometimes a detail gets lost in translation as it did in this case, and so we’ve got to find a way to hard-wire so that information gets back and we can take action on it.”

KIRO Radio’s Frank Shiers contributed to this report.