They had to do this for the entire holiday. During a pandemic.
“It was a huge effort on the part of many people,” said Scott McAuley, executive director of pharmacy at Piedmont, who had to figure out how to create the Covid-19 monoclonal antibody treatment program.
Studies show that these treatments can prevent high-risk patients with Covid-19 from developing severe symptoms, still, health officials say that not enough treatments have been used.
Giving someone these treatments is not as simple as swallowing a pill. Because they are infectious, patients undergoing this treatment need to be kept separate from others. A nurse with full protective equipment needs to administer the treatment for about an hour and then monitor the patient for another hour.
“This prevents hospitalizations, but the logistics of that have been frightening and, of course, having nurses in our current national health crisis also has its own struggle,” said McAuley.
The Piedmont program now treats about 250 Covid-19 patients a week, but across the country, health officials said the treatments were not used enough in the months they were available.
In Michigan, for example, less than 10% of the available Covid-19 monoclonal antibody treatments were used, said Dr. William Fales, medical director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, during a news conference last week.
California health officials told CNN that facilities in their state managed 8% of the stock of monoclonal antibodies available during the week of January 13.
But as the Biden government launches its own national strategy to control the pandemic, it is unclear exactly how many of the distributed antibody treatments actually treated patients, or where. This information is not published on the HHS website or tracked on state panels.
HHS told CNN in early January that the average use of antibody therapies was 25%. Eli Lilly said on Wednesday that the use of both antibody therapies authorized in the United States had increased to 39%, according to information that Operation Warp Speed shared with the company last week.
“We need you to ask your provider about monoclonal antibodies as a way to keep you out of the hospital,” said Adams.
“The drugs, these therapies are not being used as much as I am, or the doctors on the task force, or the specialists, career specialists here at HHS think they should. I want to remind everyone that we are not helpless in our crusade against the virus. “
Aggressive public reach in progress
An Eli Lilly spokeswoman, Molly McCully, said in an email that the company is seeing “a steady improvement in usage week by week”. She added that the company is partnering with the government to raise awareness about treatments.
Alexandra Bowie, a spokeswoman for Regeneron, said the company recognizes that “there have been challenges in the last 10 meters in terms of easy administration of the antibody to patients.”
“Our team worked hard to develop and test this drug in record time and, obviously, we want it to reach as many patients as possible, as quickly as possible,” Bowie said in an email.
“Given that the release of antibodies coincided with an increase in the virus in most states, it is understandably difficult for health professionals / centers that are already exhausted,” said Bowie. “But we get calls every day from government leaders who respond to patient / doctor comments and work to ensure that more Americans have access to these drugs.”
Regeneron said it is also trying to educate providers and raise awareness through social media.
Education seems to be working. North Dakota, for example, said it has also been trying to help spread the information to doctors and the public. It is also something that contract trackers mention when they contact people to let them know they have been exposed to someone with Covid-19.
“Initially, there was a lot of skepticism about these drugs,” said Dr. Joshua Ranum, vice president of the North Dakota Medical Association. “Now, there has been a very aggressive public reach here. I have seen a lot more awareness and patient acceptance and we have seen some quite dramatic results with effectiveness.”
Although the use of monoclonal antibody treatments has been “low”, it has grown steadily, according to North Dakota public information officer Heather Steffl. She said the use of treatments has grown from 450 infusions during the first six weeks to an average of 650 per week.
And it has helped. Steffl said the state has seen “success” with treatments and a decrease in the number of hospitalizations.
‘Now there is something they can really do to help’
One health system that has adopted treatments is Sanford Health, based in South Dakota, which manages 46 hospitals and 200 elderly care facilities in 26 states.
Sanford said he has treated more than 1,400 patients so far with Lilly and Regeneron antibody therapies.
“Don’t get me wrong, there was a bit of construction to do that,” said Dr. Jermey Cauwels, chief medical officer at Sanford. “But honestly, when we saw that this is something that would help us get through the worst of the crisis, we said, ‘Let’s see how quickly we can do this.’ “
Sanford’s electronic registration system was the key to the program’s success, Cauwels said. It is now configured to automatically signal when someone tests positive for Covid-19. The system notifies a group that quickly determines whether the patient is eligible for treatment and, if so, Sanford calls to get him to the clinic as soon as possible.
Cauwels said the treatments have already prevented at least 40 hospitalizations, several deaths “and more than a year of hospitalization days”.
“This is just to do this for a few months,” said Cauwels.
Nurse Dena Ollis, director of women’s services who helped establish the program at the Piedmont Athens Regional in Georgia, said the treatments with monoclonal antibodies brought something that the team and patients didn’t see much of during the pandemic – hope.
“We were very anxious with the setup of everything, but after we got everything up and running, it was very gratifying to see the patients so thankful,” said Ollis. “And the team is feeling very hopeful that now there is something they can really do to help the patient and, hopefully, prevent the disease process from getting worse.”
Jacqueline Howard of CNN contributed to this report.