COVID-19 AT RENOWN HEALTH

TWO YEARS WE WON'T FORGET

Learning and Adapting to an Ever-Changing Virus

February 2020

Standing Up the Hospital Incident Command System (HICS)

On February 25, 2020, leaders at Renown Health stood up Renown's Hospital Incident Command System (HICS), a standardized system used to organize response personnel and resources and manage response operations during emergencies and crises.

March 19, 2020  Hospital Bed

March 19, 2020

Renown Regional admitted the first patient in need of care while sick with COVID-19

Our providers navigated two years of a pandemic and overcame many challenges while providing the best care for our patients and the community.
deployable medical structure at renown regional

March 2020

Temporary Deployable Medical Structure Placed Outside Renown Regional Emergency Department

On March 12, 2020, Renown set up a deployable medical facility to serve as a respiratory illness screening center for emergency room patients at Renown Regional. A similar tent was also set up outside the emergency room at South Meadows Medical Center. This proactive measure helped our teams care for community members with respiratory illness symptoms while protecting patients and staff in the emergency department and other areas of the hospital.
alternative care site

April 2020

Alternate Care Site at Mill Street Parking Structure Begins Construction

Renown’s HICS team decided to create an Alternate Care Site (ACS) in the Renown Regional Medical Center Mill Street parking structure. The ACS served additional hospitalized patients and allowed caregivers to remain on campus and still have access to existing hospital infrastructure such as lab, pharmacy, imaging, food services and other critical services. After just 10 days of construction, the ACS was completed on April 3, 2020 with space to hold up to 1,400 patients.

On Nov. 12, 2020, Renown opened the ACS to serve additional hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who were clinically stable or improving. Healthcare workers at Renown cared for hundreds of patients at this site. In early Jan. 2021, the remaining patients returned home.
love sculpture at renown regional

April and July 2020

The LOVE Sculpture Placed at Renown Regional 

On April 16, 2020, during a time of darkness and uncertainty, Artown loaned Renown the LOVE sculpture, a one-ton aluminum piece of art created by artist Laura Kimpton and fabricated by Jeff Schomberg. The structure, which originally debuted at Burning Man, was lit up Renown Regional's main entrance on Mill St.

On July 13, 2020, thanks to the support of former board chair and community supporter Blake Smith and the Keyser Foundation, the LOVE sculpture is now a permanent fixture at Renown Health. Throughout the pandemic, it has served as a source of inspiration, hope and positivity for our community and care providers.

Iconic Love Sculpture Makes Permanent Home at Renown

Covid-19 Testing

June 2020

Renown Offers In-House COVID-19 Testing

The Renown laboratory team sprang into action to help meet the growing demand for COVID-19 testing amongst Washoe County residents and businesses. Renown invested in expanded staffing and in-house testing capabilities that ensured our teams could swab and process up to 1,000 COVID-19 tests for patients each day. All with results returning within hours. 

Learn more about our in-house COVID-19 testing.

November 2020

Renown Introduces “Hospital At Home” Remote Monitoring

Six patients at Renown Regional Medical Center and Renown South Meadows Medical Center diagnosed with COVID-19 were outfitted with a remote Hospital at Home monitoring system. Renown clinicians plan to continue using this system to monitor upwards of 1,000 hospitalized patients and lower acuity patients from their homes.

Read the At-Home Patient Monitoring press release.

employee vaccination event

December 2020

Renown Administers COVID-19 Vaccines to Health Care Employees

On Dec. 17, 2020, Renown began to vaccinate its healthcare workers. Among those receiving the first vaccines was Luis Martinez, a technician on Renown’s Clinical Decision Unit who cared for patients recovering from COVID-19 in the Alternate Care Site field hospital.

Read the Reno Gazette Journal article about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout at Renown.