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!
In: Other
You have it mostly right. It means transforming regular rooms into ER rooms, adding more beds to existing rooms, turning utility rooms (even closets) into patient rooms, rolling beds into hallways… the same sorts of things you would do in your house if you suddenly found out 30 people were coming for the holidays instead of the usual 10. And yeah, there are even mobile trailers and tents in parking lots here and there, or at least there can be if needed.
It’s ugly and temporary, but what else are they gonna do?
(Also it’s not really “short notice”, since there was a panic back in March and April, and then a lot of the emergency capacity wasn’t ever needed, so hospitals have all had practice lately. Remember when they set up beds in Javits, and the emergency ship?)
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