JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – UPDATE – Ballad Health announced one confirmed case of COVID-19 in Washington County, Tennessee on Friday.

Jamie Swift, Ballad Health’s Corporate Director of Infection Prevention said the patient is in self-isolation and recently traveled out of the country.

The Tennessee Department of Health notified Ballad Health on Thursday of the positive result, and the patient has been in self-isolation since receiving the result.

Swift said the patient is a resident of Washington County, and got tested at a drive-thru testing facility.

“We want to stress that this is an example of exactly why we have our drive-thru testing sites,” Swift said. “This patient was able to call into our nurse connect line, speak with a physician, be appropriately triaged and be referred to the testing for testing with no community or healthcare exposure.”

As of Friday, the patient is doing well while in self-isolation, Swift said.

Ballad officials could not comment on whether the patient had contact with other people before quarantining. They diverted further questions to the state health department.

Officials confirmed the patient did not enter any of Ballad Health’s medical facilities.

Starting Friday, Ballad Health is suspending all non-emergency surgical procedures at Ballad Health facilities until further notice during the outbreak.

The patient is a Washington County resident who has traveled out of the country, Swift said. — Jessica Fuller WJHL (@fullerjf91) March 20, 2020

Ballad has made the decision to postpone any non-emergent surgical procedures that are performed in their facilities. — Jessica Fuller WJHL (@fullerjf91) March 20, 2020

The decision follows Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement on Thursday that he is asking all healthcare providers across the state to suspend elective procedures in order to divert more staff, ventilators and other medical supplies to the potential treatment of COVID-19.

“We jointly thought this was important to protect our caregivers and our patients as well as preserve important personal protective equipment that we need under the current conditions,” Dr. Clay Runnels, Ballad’s chief physician executive, said.

Runnels said patients with procedures scheduled in the next week will receive communication from Ballad regarding procedures.

Alan Levine, president and chief executive officer, estimated the delay in such procedures could cost Ballad up to “nine figures.”

“There’s a lot of economic harm being done throughout the region, not just to Ballad or to the physician groups, but to the restaurants and small business owners,” Levine said, adding, “As we make decisions we are extremely sensitive to the fact that any decision we make, they have a cascading effect on the whole region.”

Visitations are also suspended at Ballad Health’s inpatient hospitals, longterm care or behavioral health facilities with a few exceptions, namely in labor and delivery, along with NICU visitors.

Inpatient visitations are suspended with a few exceptions:



Labor and delivery will allow one visitor per room, a spouse, guardian or partner of the person delivering. NICU will allow two visitors, a parent or guardian of the patients. — Jessica Fuller WJHL (@fullerjf91) March 20, 2020

Eric Deaton, chief operating officer at Ballad, said that care teams at each facility will have the authority to make exceptions.

Deaton added that no visitors under the age of 18 will be allowed at Ballad’s facilities.

As of Friday, Ballad Health reported that there was no immediate concern regarding the number of medical supplies, but they do not want to overuse.

Levine said that about 20% of the system’s ICU beds are available, which is about 50 beds. That doesn’t include beds in other areas of care such as operating rooms, Levine said.

He added that the system has about 164 ventilators available which doesn’t include ventilators being used in operating rooms.

“We believe that we’re in pretty good shape in the event that we do see cases that we need to treat but that doesn’t mean that we want to be foolish with the supplies, we need to be very conservative with our use of the supplies,” he said.

Levine said Ballad is currently seeing a wait time of 4-6 days to receive results from private labs, but he added that he hopes to see capabilities for local testing that will allow results within 72 hours.

Levine said "We're seeing an extended wait time 4-6 days for private labs."



He said his team is in the process of securing technology to do the test at Ballad to shave testing time down to a few hours. — Jessica Fuller WJHL (@fullerjf91) March 20, 2020

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the patient was identified as male. Ballad Health never distinguished the patient’s gender. It has been corrected.

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Ballad Health has announced they will provide an update at noon on Friday on the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities region.

According to a release from Ballad Health, a media briefing will take place at noon in Johnson City to address the latest number of confirmed cases in the region.

Ballad Health will also provide updates on additional safety measures for the community’s safety.

News Channel 11 will stream the briefing here and on our Facebook page.

This is a developing story. Stay tuned with News Channel 11 online and on-air for updates.

For complete coverage of the coronavirus, click here.