Premier Health Center

110 N. Main St.

Dayton, Ohio 45402

PremierHealth.com

April 18, 2020

The Honorable Mike DeWine

77 High Street
30th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Governor DeWine,

Thank you for continuing to lead us through the COVID-19 pandemic. We are especially appreciative of
your willingness to listen to those who are on the front lines fighting this crisis 24 hours a day. I am
writing regarding escalating issues due to the inequitable distribution of reagents to hospital labs in our
region. This is now causing differentiated patient care standards. We do not believe the patients in
Region 3 should be disadvantaged and denied expedited testing when it exists elsewhere in Ohio.

Below, we have provided an additional level of detail to address our concerns:

• We are asking that more COVID-19 testing reagent, provided through third party vendors, be
made available locally to process the tests for Region 3. Transporting the tests further
distances, due to the lack of reagent, will only exacerbate the time to receive test results and
will increase costs. Most importantly, patient care is being impacted -- we can complete these
tests in Dayton with a rapid four-hour turnaround time mitigating the need to delay care. This
will remain a crucial issue for some time when elective surgeries and procedures are
reintroduced.

• Our reagent supply across Region 3 is not keeping up with demand –we can do only
approximately 147 tests a day at Premier Health’s in-house lab, CompuNet, Kettering Medical
Center and at Dayton Children’s. We have been following ODH guidelines and are able to
handle testing for Priority 1: inpatients and healthcare workers and Priority 2: front-line
responders and skilled nursing home facility workers. As the state moves to begin elective
surgeries and procedures, we anticipate needing reagent supplies to perform 1,000 tests per
day in our region in order to keep patients and staff safe.

• Currently other regions in the state have been allotted reagent amounts enabling the ability to
perform over 1,000 tests per day for a single health system, including all patient admissions.
When looking at population numbers, this is an exponential difference in distribution and is
inequitable. In addition, we are hearing that other systems are currently testing beyond Priority
1 and 2, including all patient admissions and therefore, are not in line with ODH priorities,
ordered on April 1.
 • In speaking with our vendors, we have been told their inventories are being managed by the
Department of Defense, through the Ohio Department of Health, and that they cannot sell us
supplies, such as reagent because they are being sent to specific health systems in Ohio; such as
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, and Cleveland Clinic
for example. We are asking for clarification as to the accuracy of this information and what it
means now and going forward.

We know there are a myriad of difficult decisions being made each day and what works initially, often
needs to be modified or changed with new information and data. Our first responsibility is to our
patients, our clinical and support staff, and the people of Region 3 as we work together to provide
equitable care throughout our region, including rural hospitals who we serve.

We are respectfully asking you to help us provide a safe environment, the quick turnaround of test
results, and an ample and equitably distributed supply of reagent to serve our region effectively. At
Premier Health, we face challenges, similar to other large tertiary hospitals in Cleveland, Columbus and
Cincinnati. As you may know, Miami Valley Hospital is over 900 beds and is the 18th largest hospital in
the nation and 3rd largest in Ohio. We appreciate you reviewing our request.

Sincerely,

Mary Boosalis
President & CEO

Cc: Lt. Governor Jon Husted

Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton
Dayton Area State Legislative Delegation
Dayton Area Federal Legislative Delegation