Elective Surgeries Restarted At Northern Arizona Healthcare Facilities With Faster Testing At FMC

Northern Arizona Healthcare has restarted elective surgeries with COVID-19 testing turnaround times improving at Flagstaff Medical Center. Officials say NAH’s outpatient orthopedic surgery center started doing elective surgeries on May 13th and last Friday some elective surgeries restarted at FMC. Testing with a quick turnaround is now taking place at both FMC and Verde Valley Medical Center. FMC Chief Quality Officer John Mougin says the in-house testing “allows one-to-two hour turnaround times for a limited and specified population of patients” at both hospitals. He adds “this quickly allows us to know what a patient’s test status is and it helps us to care for the patient with the appropriate precautions and even reduce the amount of PPE we use to care for that patient.” FMC officials say most of the COVID-19 positive patients continue to be from the Navajo Nation, which has been a constant since the beginning of the pandemic. As of Thursday there have been 64 known COVID-19 positive deaths at Flagstaff Medical Center and Verde Valley Medical Center combined.