A mistake found in Walla Walla County moves region up to Phase 2
By Terry Murry on Sunday, February 14th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WALLA WALLA – Washington’s South Central Region, which includes Walla Walla County has been upgraded to Phase 2 of the state’s reopening plan. The looser restrictions go into effect today.
“After the region did not move to Phase 2 last week, it was brought to the attention of the Washington State Department of Health that a hospital in the region appeared to be incorrectly reporting its hospital admissions data,” the letter from DOH states. “Based upon the recalculated hospital admission metric, DOH concluded that the region meets the required criteria and will advance to Phase 2 of the Governor’s Roadmap to Recovery effective today.”
The hospital in question was Providence-St. Mary Medical Center. The hospital issued a statement via DOH.
“On Friday, Feb. 12, Providence St. Mary Medical Center discovered an error in its reporting of COVID-19 positive patients admitted to the hospital, and immediately provided corrected data to the Washington Department of Health. The error was unintentional, and we acted as quickly as possible to provide corrected data to the state. We hope this corrected information will be helpful in assessing whether our communities are ready to move to Phase 2 of the Governor’s reopening plan, and we appreciate our partnership with the state that has allowed us to correct this error,” Providence-St. Mary Chief Executive Susan Blackburn stated.
Over the weekend a Yakima County commissioner did a deep dive into the data that held the region back, and found the error from a hospital in Walla Walla County. Commissioner Amanda McKinney said that hospital admissions in Walla Walla County actually dropped by 36 percent.
“I would like to thank everyone in Walla Walla County, including our Department of Community Health, our partners in the South Central Region, other agencies and personnel who worked tirelessly to make it possible for us to move to Phase 2,” Walla Walla County Commissioner Greg Tompkins wrote in a prepared statement.
Illustration: People may now color the South Central Region yellow.
