Here in New York, Gov. Cuomo is ordering hospitals to increase “managed bed capacity” by 25-50%. I’m wondering how exactly.
Some guesses:
Cancel elective surgery and turn all those recovery room beds into “managed beds”.
Assign nurses to ER beds and make people stay in the ER.
***edit: I was trying to make a joke with this one. Come to find out I’m not funny***
Tell women to stop having babies (not so sure about this one)
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Build actual new capacity in a tent outside in the parking lot.
We are creeping up in some critical capacity thresholds and it seems like a simple solution to just say “increase capacity”. How can we do it in on such short notice?
Thanks!
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Hospital worker here. Here’s a few things that I’ve seen -.
-Cancel elective surgeries and use the admission areas as well as the ORs.
-Cancel other non-surgical day procedures.
-There are usually areas in a hospital that were designed to take beds, but are surplus in normal operation and are instead used for training, physio, or any number of non-essential things. These can be converted back to bedded areas.
-Agree with other hospitals to take patients needing a service that you normally provide, freeing up those beds at your hospital.
I’ve never seen patients receiving treatment in a corridor or parking lot. Sometimes you’ll see patients in beds in corridors who have come from the emergency department who are waiting for a inpatient space.
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