March 16, 2020 / Susan Dentzer, Dr. Peter Viccellio and Eugene Litvak
Hospitals around the country, many already operating at or near 100% of capacity, are now taking drastic steps to prepare for patients with COVID-19.
Some are following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and the recommendations of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, canceling elective surgeries such as hip and knee replacements and scheduled surgeries for cancer patients.
Amid projections that there could be 1 million or more hospitalizations in the U.S. due to the novel coronavirus, there are calls for building “pop-up” hospitals, as in China, or converting hotels and other facilities to temporary hospital wards.
Depending on the extent and severity of the outbreak, some or all of these steps may be necessary. But there will still be tens of thousands of cancer patients, as well as those who have suffered heart attacks and strokes, who will need care amid the pandemic. Fortunately, there is another way to create a large amount of additional hospital capacity quickly, if the hospital and insurance sectors will take coordinated action.
For years, the default choice of hospitals operating at or above 100% of capacity has been to expand and add more beds. But years of research on the subject of “patient flow” has shown that hospitals can manage their bed capacity far better than they often do, and in the process, reduce or eliminate the need to add more beds.
