OK: Possible hospital staffing shortage

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Updated: 6:47 PM CDT Jul 16, 2020
Dillon Richards

OKLAHOMA CITY —
Local public-health officials are sounding the alarm about hospital staffing as COVID-19 numbers and the hospitalizations that follow them are surging.

Current hospitalizations are at the second highest level seen during the pandemic.

The state Health Department has touted the state’s hospital capacity and plans to use surge beds to increase the space for COVID-19 patients, if necessary. However, concerns about staffing are new – at least publicly.

"You can have beds all day long, but if you don't have the staff to take care of the people in those beds, you're still failing,” said Dr. Patrick McGough, director of the Oklahoma City-County Health Department ...

https://www.koco.com/article/public-health-officials-sound-alarm-on-possible-hospital-staffing-shortage-amid-covid-19-surge/33341348#

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1. KS: County officials want better information on hospital capacity

ROXIE HAMMILL / JULY 16, 2020 04:49 PM

Commissioners have been asking about a change in hospital data reporting procedures for weeks, but that took on a new urgency Thursday as Public Health Director Sanmi Areola, PhD, reported the positive test results have been increasing exponentially. The county had 920 new cases in the first ten days of July, compared with 848 for the entire month of June, Areola said.

That increase cannot be attributed to more tests conducted, he said, noting that the percentage of tests that were positive is now 5.9%, compared with 2% during the shelter-in-place ...

But determining the hospital capacity in the metro area has become problematic since area hospitals changed the database they use to report capacity. Assistant County Manager Joe Connor said hospitals had reported their COVID-19-related in-patient activity for a decade to Missouri Hospital Association’s EM Resource, and that data was accessible by county officials. That number has been put up on the county’s COVID-19 dashboard of statistics on its website in the past.

On June 19, though, hospitals all began using a Centers for Disease Control database called the National Healthcare Safety Network, Connor said, and the county has so far not been able to get into those figures. The fact that the White House has ordered hospitals to report their information to a new database rather than directly to the CDC adds another wrinkle to the issue. The new database is overseen by Health and Human Services, which also oversees the CDC ...

https://shawneemissionpost.com/2020/07/16/county-officials-want-better-information-on-hospital-capacity-as-part-of-covid-19-reporting-96898/

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2. FL Miami Mayor considering a shutdown as ICUs reach 95% capacity

By LEAH SIMPSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 15:54 EDT, 16 July 2020 | UPDATED: 17:34 EDT, 16 July 2020

About 95 percent of hospitals in the City of Miami have reached capacity, Mayor Francis Suarez said on Thursday ...

ICU beds in eight Miami-Dade hospitals were fully occupied and only 15 percent (154) available elsewhere out of a total 993.

Suarez said hospitals will have some capacity for about four weeks if the COVID-19 growth rate stays the same.

The state was reporting 315,775 cases (up 13,965 from the day before) and 4,677 deaths (up 157 from the day before) on Thursday. It was a record increase in daily deaths for the state ...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8531083/Miami-hospitals-reached-95-capacity-Covid-19-pandemic-Mayor-Francis-Suarez-says.html

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3. Texas Hospitals Head Towards Full Capacity

By Sara Willa ErnstJuly 16, 2020 4:20 pm

Hospitals in Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley are struggling to keep up with the constant and growing flow of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. And many hospitals are reaching full capacity while making preparations on how to treat an overflow of patients.

“It’s no different than any of the urban centers in Texas,” said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg on Monday. “We’re seeing hospitalizations increase and accelerate to the point where we’re now in single digits in capacity with hospital beds, ICUs and ventilators.”

Three weeks ago, Houston found itself in this very spot when the Texas Medical Center reported that it was completely full. Since then, Houston hospitals have been forced to get creative, resorting to unconventional ways to make space for these patients.

Houston Methodist Hospital, for example, hired traveling nurses and converted facilities originally designed for totally separate purposes into ICU units ...

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-hospitals-head-towards-full-capacity-due-to-covid-19-uptick/

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4. CDC Hospital Data Back -- for Now

by Charles Ornstein July 16, 3:38 p.m. EDT

... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed from its website, and then restored, data on hospital capacity across the country to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. But in a note, the agency indicated that the data may no longer be updated because of a change in federal reporting requirements to hospitals.

On Wednesday, ProPublica noticed that the CDC’s website had stopped displaying hospital capacity information, which was seen as a good barometer of whether hospitals in certain states had enough beds to deal with surges in COVID-19 cases. The data showed that more than 70% of intensive care unit beds in some states, including Texas and Arizona, were filled. That had been viewed by some experts as a benchmark for safely reopening businesses.

This week, federal officials instructed hospitals to stop reporting data to the CDC and instead report it using a portal created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They said that the CDC’s data system was antiquated, and that HHS wanted to use this information to help make real-time decisions about testing and shipments of personal protective equipment.

On Thursday morning, when ProPublica confirmed that the information had not been restored to the CDC website up to that point, members of Congress and a former CDC director weighed in to call for more transparency ...

https://www.propublica.org/article/out-of-view-after-public-outcry-cdc-adds-hospital-data-back-to-its-website-for-now

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5. CO: Mercy hospital reaches staffing capacity for ICU beds

By Shannon Mullane Herald Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 2020 10:40 AM Updated 2 hours 4 minutes ago

The intensive care unit at Mercy Regional Medical Center was at capacity this week – not because all the beds are in use, but because the hospital does not have sufficient staffing to care for more ICU patients, according to the hospital’s president and CEO.

Hospital capacity, including access to ventilators, COVID-19 testing and personal protective equipment, has been one of the nation’s primary concerns as it grapples with the coronavirus pandemic. While Mercy is at capacity for ICU beds, it is not at capacity for ventilators and can provide care for sick patients, with or without COVID-19, Murphy said.

“We have 23 ICU beds, however, due to our ability to staff those – find the ICU nurses and have them here – we’re actually at capacity today,” Murphy said Tuesday during a virtual presentation to the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance.

During the presentation, Murphy said only five or six patients were in the ICU for COVID-related treatment, while others were there for non-COVID care. Mercy did not provide more specific information about how many of the 23 ICU beds are filled ...

https://the-journal.com/articles/182096-mercy-hospital-reaches-staffing-capacity-for-icu-beds

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6. Nashville's hospital bed capacity a concern

by Kaylin Jorge
Thursday, July 16th 2020

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Nashville is again not meeting goals for hospital bed capacity and city leaders say its a concern.

As of Thursday, the floor hospital bed capacity sits at 18%, which is below the 20% goal.

"With the high number of new cases, our resources could get stretched," Dr. Alex Jahanigr said during a Thursday news conference ...

The city's transmission rate moved into the red zone last week as it's risen to 1.2, an unsatisfactory level. The goal is to have a transmission rate of 1.0, which means that each person who has the virus passes it to one other person. Anything above 1.0 signals a spread in the virus ...

https://fox17.com/news/local/nashvilles-hospital-bed-capacity-a-concern-for-leaders

[Maru Kitteh]

7. Hospital bed means absolutely zip without a nurse.

And we're getting pretty tired out here.

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8. CA: San Joaquin County ICUs at 121% capacity

Updated: 9:58 PM PDT Jul 15, 2020
Hilda Flores
Vicki Gonzalez

... Officials with the San Joaquin Office of Emergency Services said Wednesday that intensive care units in the county were operating at 121% capacity, with a total hospital capacity of 71%.

The county adds 28% of the 699 occupied hospital beds countywide are COVID positive patients, while 55% of the 120 occupied ICU beds countywide are COVID positive patients.

The Department of Defense clinical team was sent to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial Hospital (AHLM) so the county can expand its intensive care bed capacity ...

https://www.kcra.com/article/federal-medical-team-sent-san-joaquin-co-after-surge-covid-hospitalizations/33326434#

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9. Officials seek options

CNN
July 16, 2020, 10:00 AM

... In Florida there are 54 hospitals that have reached intensive care unit capacity and show zero beds available, according to data released by the Agency for Health Care Administration. Ten of those hospitals are in Miami-Dade County.

Another 40 hospitals show ICUs at 10% available capacity or less, according to the agency’s data.

In South Texas, hospitals in Laredo are full, the city’s health authority, Dr. Victor Trevino, told the city council Tuesday.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency team will arrive this week to convert a hotel to a surge hospital site to treat Covid-19 patients, Interim Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Ramiro Elizondo said at the council meeting ...

https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2020/07/officials-seek-options-for-when-hospitals-run-out-of-icu-beds/

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10. Predicts Nearly a Quarter of a Million Deaths by November

By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
July 15, 2020, at 2:28 p.m.

A WIDELY CITED coronavirus model has upped its death projection to more than 224,000 fatalities by November.

The U.S. death toll currently stands at more than 136,000, meaning that the nation will see roughly 88,000 additional fatalities over the next three and half months if the prediction plays out.

The previous update from the model, which is run by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, predicted approximately 16,000 fewer deaths by Nov. 1. The jump in the newest estimate is due to widespread new infections and an upswing in hospitalizations, according to IHME ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-15/coronavirus-model-predicts-224-000-deaths-by-november