COVID-19 cases have continued to significantly increase in Utah—resulting in consistently high volumes in hospital ICUs and acute care units across our system. Our teams are overwhelmed and we’re running out of staffed beds for patients. We are at a critical point where we must take further action to support our teams and the safety of our patients.
Intermountain is postponing all non-urgent surgeries and procedures requiring a hospital admission or postoperative inpatient monitoring in our trauma and community hospitals. This postponement starts September 15 and will last for several weeks. Leaders will evaluate the situation on a daily and weekly basis and will make necessary adjustments based on our inpatient census levels. When feasible, consolidation of remaining surgeries or procedures may take place to help free up surgical teams to be redeployed in our hospitals. Non-urgent surgeries and procedures are those that can be reasonably postponed and don’t involve a medical emergency.
The trauma and community hospitals where all non-urgent surgeries and procedures requiring a hospital admission will be postponed are:
- Alta View
- American Fork
- Cedar City
- Intermountain Medical Center
- Layton
- LDS Hospital
- Logan Regional
- McKay-Dee
- Park City
- Riverton
- Spanish Fork
- St. George
- Utah Valley
Rural hospitals, TOSH, and Primary Children’s will continue to do non-urgent surgeries and procedures requiring a hospital admission. These facilities may postpone some cases as needed, based on the criteria shared last month.
Intermountain will continue to support our caregivers working in areas where procedures are postponed.
Caregivers affected by postponed surgeries and consolidated operating rooms will be redeployed to roles in operating rooms, inpatient units, or other COVID roles within their hospital or a nearby facility. COVID roles include clinical helping hands, greeters, proning teams, and other need-to-staff areas. If caregivers are unable to be redeployed after all available options are exhausted, COVID pay is available. COVID pay isn’t available if caregivers turn down a redeployment opportunity. Redeployed caregivers should contact their local OR manager or geographic surgery director with questions.
If you have an HR-related question about COVID-19, including pay, benefits, leave time, exposures, etc., please contact Ask HR: 801-442-7547 or askhr@imail.org. The Employee Health triage team continues to offer priority COVID triaging and testing for all caregivers. This means if you think you’ve been exposed to COVID-19, an Employee Health nurse will triage your exposure and arrange for testing. When Employee Health orders a test, you’ll receive an email with testing site locations and hours.
To contact Employee Health:
- Caregivers: call Ask HR, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., at 801-442-7547.
- Physician and APPs: call the dedicated provider line, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., at 801-442-6765.
- If you call on the weekend, please leave a voicemail. Messages are returned between 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
- If you’re experiencing symptoms, please stay home—don’t come to work.
Thank you for your dedication and commitment for everything you do to fight COVID. If you have any additional questions about this announcement, please review the FAQs.
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