The New York State Department of Health (DOH) has sent hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) a letter that provides additional guidance on implementing DOH’s revised personal protective equipment (PPE) emergency regulations (see LRB-22). The revised regulations reduce hospitals’ PPE stockpile requirement from 90 days to 60 days and provide new calculation methodologies for both hospital and nursing home PPE stockpile requirements.
The DOH letter provides additional details on the formula for calculating the hospital PPE stockpile requirements for each item of PPE. Specifically, today’s guidance clarifies that each hospital’s staffed bed count to be used in the PPE formula is based on the single day maximum number of staffed beds from the period of April 1, 2020–April 1, 2021. It also makes clear that the formula in the regulations reflects a hospital’s daily amount of PPE needed for each PPE category, and that this formula should be multiplied by 60 to capture a hospital’s 60-day PPE stockpile need. In addition, DOH has calculated each hospital’s required level of PPE for each category and reported this to hospital CEOs, chief operating officers, and HERDS survey responders via the Health Commerce Distribution Management System application within the Health Commerce System. If your hospital has questions or concerns about the required PPE amounts determined by DOH, please email hospinfo@health.ny.gov.
GNYHA recognizes that certain components of the formula used to calculate each hospital’s required PPE amounts, such as the definition of staffed beds, require further clarification. GNYHA is requesting clarification from DOH on these elements and will share further guidance as it becomes available.
The PPE emergency regulations went into effect on July 30. Hospitals must be compliant with the regulation’s requirements no later than August 31, and the first measurement date for HERDS reporting is September 1.
Please contact Jenna Mandel-Ricci with questions about the PPE requirements and Scott Gaffney with questions about the PPE calculations.