In a recent order by the governor, health care providers in Ohio have been given the green right to resume elective surgeries.

An order the alleviates the long lines of patients that had elective procedures such as hip replacements, knee replacement among the many other surgeries delayed.

Many healthcare professionals say that although it's a step toward normalcy, the transition isn't quite that simple

"It's not like flipping a light-switch and all of the sudden you're up and running.  The hospitals need some time." says Tom Jones, chief of surgery at Steward Health.

He says his staff needs time to adjust, and has hopes to open by May 4th.

"It's going to take about a week or 10 days to get the system back online to handle the increase in the number of cases.", added Jones.

At Southwoods Health, chief operating officer Steve Davenport believes it's a marathon not a sprint.

"If we loosen up too much, we risk Covid expanding past it's contained state.  So we as a health care provider need to ease out of this in a very progressive manner." Davenport mentioned.

Another big question, what about the PPE?

"The hospital administration does a count of PPE availability twice per day, and they feel confident there is enough PPE.  If at some point PPE levels get to be a risk, they'll simply start suspending elective procedures.", Jones says.

Most importantly, health care professionals say decisions about which procedures and when they should be done, is a conversation that needs to happen between his/her doctor.