Oct 26, 2009 2:50 pm US/Mountain
National Emergency Declaration Helps Hospitals
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) ―
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A boy gets an H1N1 vaccination.
CBS
President Barak Obama's decision to declare the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency could make it easier for Colorado hospitals to treat patients.
At The Children's Hospital in Aurora, hospital administrators say now some procedures will be streamlined. For example, nurses can do emergency room screenings, freeing doctors to handle the sickest patients.
"Under these federal mandates, my guess is that we'll become a little bit more flexible and really be able to change how we deal with those high influx of patients," Dr. Joan Bothner with The Children's Hospital said.
The declaration could also improve hospital's access to supplies and could make it easier for them to open off-site emergency care centers.
"This makes things much, much easier from an emergency medicine perspective to deal with the large numbers of patients who potentially could need our help," Bothner said.
Colorado is one of 46 states that have widespread flu activity.
The Children's Hospital has seen their number of swine flu cases decrease significantly from about 3 weeks ago.
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