Cottage Hospital ER nurses educating Santa Barbara through COVID-19 Pandemic
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Cottage Hospital emergency room nurses are finding out very few of their patients know what to do if they get COVID-19. That demand for education helped push for a new division to help the community.
The new division was started with help from the Cottage Center for Population Health. The goal is to help those who test positive know how to quarantine and recover properly, and if a patient needs urgent medical attention to have a nurse on call for them to connect with.
The nurses suggest if you test positive for COVID-19 to reach out to your primary care doctor. Then listen to their advice on whether you need to come in or just quarantine and recover at home. The nurses' helpline is geared to those who don't have a primary care doctor. They can help you get a COVID kit, which has a thermometer and a pulse oximeter.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, someone who tests positive for COVID-19 needs to quarantine for at least 10 days from the first sign of symptoms or from the testing date. Then if the patient doesn’t show symptoms for 24 hours without using medication to reduce symptoms, then they can leave quarantine.
