{"id":2309432,"date":"2020-03-18T11:39:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=2309432"},"modified":"2020-03-18T11:39:51","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:39:51","slug":"hospitals-prepare-for-covid-19-2309432-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/hospitals-prepare-for-covid-19-2309432-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How hospitals should prep for the COVID-19 influx"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new overview offers hospitals practical advice on preparing for the influx of patients with COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Hospitals should be prepared to clear at least 30% of their current beds to handle the influx of COVID-19 patients, or patients who would normally have gone to hospitals that will be caring for the most COVID-19 patients, the authors say in their piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This pandemic will test the resilience of our nation’s health care system. Planning must begin in full force now.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And they need to be thinking about how to create more care space if need be, they say. The 95,000 beds in the US currently used for care of medical and surgical critically ill patients\u2014and the staff, equipment, and supplies involved in that care\u2014may need to double if COVID-19 sickens as many people as the 1957 or 1968 influenza pandemics, they predict.<\/p>\n

An audio recap is also available:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/open.acast.com\/public\/streams\/5ae17fc367bbd246234ef1f5\/episodes\/5e6f8b9a52f01bbb19e43106.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

No more ‘business as usual’<\/h3>\n

“It’s time to set aside the ‘business as usual’ mindset. Even if large numbers of severe cases don’t start appearing for weeks, every moment spent on preparations now will pay off,” says lead author Vineet Chopra, the chief of hospital medicine at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center.<\/p>\n

“Most hospitals operate at full or nearly full capacity already, so these changes will not be easy. But they need to happen so that we can serve the patients who need us most, and don’t have to make hard decisions or major shifts in operations on the fly.”<\/p>\n

Chopra and senior author Laraine Washer, Michigan Medicine’s epidemiologist and an infectious disease physician, lay out the essential components of hospital COVID-19 preparedness<\/a>, together with colleagues from Johns Hopkins and Georgetown universities.<\/p>\n

How should hospitals prepare for COVID-19?<\/h3>\n

Based on their experience and published research, they advise:<\/p>\n