Hospitals Improvise Ebola Defenses, at a Cost

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                                         Nov. 18, 2014

By David Caruso

NEW YORK ---What does it take to Ebola-proof a hospital?

Over the past few months, U.S. medical centers have spent millions of dollars putting together a plan to treat patients with the scary, but extremely rare disease.

To a large extent, it has been an exercise in improvisation.

A medical worker stands outside a patient care room in a new custom-built bio-containment unit for potential Ebola cases at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York. The unit, built over two weeks, is completely separate from the main medical buildings and can house three patients simultaneously. (AP Photo/John Minchillo

In Newark, New Jersey, a hospital dealing with a space-crunch and staff anxiety moved its Ebola operation out of its main building and into a mobile medical shelter ordinarily used during natural disasters. In Dallas, Texas, three hospital systems pooled resources to create a treatment center in a defunct intensive care unit sitting empty since the spring. In Kansas, a hospital hastily built walls and hung plastic sheeting to create an isolation suite. A New York City hospital put together one unit, decided it wasn't optimal, and is finishing work on a replacement.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in the process of putting together a list of around 20 hospitals nationwide that it will certify as having the right safeguards in place to treat patients with Ebola. CDC inspection teams have been visiting hospitals to offer advice.

Read complete story for a look at some of the solutions that hospitals have come up with in three months of planning:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hospitals-improvise-ebola-defenses-cost-27000533

See previous story, Cost to treat Ebola

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/cost-treat-ebola-1-million-two-patients-n250986