The New York State Department of Health directive issued last week states that effective Thursday, December 30 we must defer all non-essential elective inpatient and outpatient procedures within the hospital. We met with representatives of the department of health on Friday, December 24 to clarify the reasons for these limitations on elective surgery. According to state officials the restrictions at St. Joseph’s Health Hospital are necessary due largely to factors affecting many hospitals in the region.  Central New York regional hospital issues that led to this decision are as follows:

1) Hospital Occupancy. St. Joseph’s Health Hospital’s seven day average acute care bed occupancy remains around 87% which is better than the designated maximum 90% occupancy New York State requires. However, despite our available capacity, our overall regional hospital occupancy has gone over 90% on multiple occasions and the pediatric bed capacity in particular is extremely limited in our area. The DOH believes that restricting elective surgeries for all Syracuse hospitals will improve capacity and encourage load balancing among the regional hospitals.

2) Transfer Capability. Many hospitals in our region are unable to accept transfers forcing patients to be transferred out of our region for care. St. Joseph’s Health Hospital accepts as many appropriate transfers as possible including most cardiac care requests and those patients requiring a higher level of care and we will continue to do so.

3) Emergency Department Diversion. DOH officials view the regional diversion rate for Syracuse (the combined diversion percentage for all Syracuse hospitals) as too high. Even though St. Joseph’s has been the lowest utilizer of diversion in Syracuse to ensure we provide services to our community, the DOH believes that better coordination among all Syracuse hospitals will improve the regional diversion problem.

In summary, effective Thursday, December 30 we will pause some but not all elective surgeries. Any elective procedures that are on our schedule for this Thursday and beyond will have been vetted as medically necessary, time sensitive procedures that require completion. Based on this scoring system these surgeries are considered essential due to highly symptomatic patients who may have intractable pain or who are at a clinically high risk of harm if their procedures are not completed.

Currently this DOH directive does not apply to ambulatory outpatient procedures, so no changes are anticipated to the schedule at NESC.

We will keep you informed of any new developments over the next few weeks.

Thank you for all you are doing to support your patients and our hospital during these challenging times.

Philip Falcone, MD, MHL, FACS

Chief Medical Officer
St. Joseph’s Health