Posted on 03/23/2020 3:04:55 AM PDT by buckalfa
If the novel coronavirus continues to spread widely in the U.S., a lack of hospital beds in certain areas will limit access to necessary care. Some of the states hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak, such as New York and Washington, have low hospital bed availability, making it vital for federal, state and local policymakers to take aggressive action to expand capacity.
The Urban Institute released a report March 19 that shows availability of unoccupied hospital beds varies significantly across urban and rural areas, states and counties. An analysis by ProPublica and a report in Health Affairs revealed most communities in the U.S. have far too few beds to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients, and analysis by Kaiser Health News shows there's also a shortage of intensive care unit beds in many parts of the country.
Below are 16 things to know about hospital bed capacity in cities, counties and states across the U.S.
Hospital bed availability in the U.S.
1. The U.S. had an estimated 728,000 medical and surgical hospital beds available to the public in 2018, or 2.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people, according to the Urban Institute's analysis.
2. On a typical day, 36 percent of the 728,000 beds were unoccupied, leaving 0.8 beds per 1,000 people.
3. If COVID-19 infected 40 percent of the adult population in a six-month period, there would be a capacity gap of nearly 1.4 million inpatient beds, according to an analysis published by Health Affairs.
4. The U.S. may need 1.9 million intensive care unit beds — 20 times the current amount available — in coming months to treat patients with COVID-19, according to Kaiser Health News, which cited data from the American Hospital Association.
Hospital capacity in individual states
5. Five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada and Rhode Island — have lower than average hospital capacity and rates of unoccupied beds, according to the Urban Institute.
6. Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have higher than average hospital capacity.
Hospital bed availability in individual cities
7. According to an analysis published in Health Affairs, the following five cities have the lowest capacity gap in the U.S.:
Minot, ND Great Falls, Mont. Meridian, Miss. Grand Forks, ND Oxford, Miss.
8. Based on the analysis, the following five cities have the highest capacity gap:
Arlington, Va. Ventura, Calif. Salisbury, Md. Longview, Texas Takoma Park, Md.
9. If COVID-19 infected only 20 percent of the adult population over a year, many cities across the U.S. would not have enough beds to treat the influx of patients without adding new beds or displacing other patients, according to ProPublica's analysis of data from the Harvard Global Health Institute. Based on infection rates that occurred in past pandemics, the 20 percent estimate is conservative.
10. In a moderate scenario, where 40 percent of the adult population is infected over a year, hospitals in many cities would have far fewer beds than needed to meet demand.
11. The data from the Harvard Global Health Institute shows there would be a significant bed shortage in the three U.S. hospital markets, or Hospital Referral Regions, with the largest adult populations under the moderate scenario.
Los Angeles: Patients would require 21,600 beds, which is 3.3 times the available beds. Houston: Patients would require 14,300 beds, which is 2.8 times the available beds. Atlanta: Patients would require 13,700 beds, which is 4.1 times the available beds. 12. The availability of intensive care unit beds varies wildly across the country and within each state. In California, one of the states hit hardest by COVID-19, San Francisco has one ICU bed for every 532 people age 60 or older, while Los Angeles has one bed for every 847 residents age 60 or older.
Hospital bed capacity at the county level
13. Certain counties most affected by COVID-19, such as Westchester County, N.Y., and King County, Wash., have lower than average unoccupied beds per 1,000 residents, according to the Urban Institute.
Westchester County, N.Y.: 0.67 unoccupied hospital beds per 1,000 people King County, Wash.: 0.5 unoccupied hospital beds per 1,000 people 14. More than half of counties in the U.S. have no hospital intensive care unit beds, according to Kaiser Health News.
15. In the U.S., 26 million people live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU, and 11 million more people live in counties with no hospital.
16. In counties that rank in the top 10 percent in the U.S. for ICU bed count, there is still only one bed for as many as 450 people.
This initial triage is working wonders, and cutting down the number of beds taken by folks with worries.
This way only folks who show signs of Corona proceed for further Corona examinations and treatments.
Now that the tests are quicker, those who had temperatures, showed signs but did not test positive are sent away from the Corona treatment areas.
Am sure that when the new effective treatments are approved the Corona bed turnover will be much quicker.
This indicates that the right stuff is happening at the hospital and getting better.
I spent two decades of my life basically living in hospitals. I don’t recall ever seeing one with 36% empty beds. They must be counting the hours the room was empty between patients.
“ China has over 4X our population, worse healthcare, unabated early spread. Did China need 8 million ICU beds?”
No way! All China needed was a few guys with arc welders...
(Yes, it’s a lot of hype, but people are not logical creatures.)
...and in every ICU I have been I cannot recall ever seeing an “empty ICU beds”. Usually there are people all over the hospital waiting for one and the nurses on the floors are stressed to provide ICU level care.
The real bottleneck is going to be next weekend, IMHO.
You make a good case and perhaps we should have been doing more about flu epidemics than we have.
Great point plus consider skill mix. Daughter is an APRN(NP). She does mostly elective diagnostic cardiology procedures.Her department is being limited to being on call for emergent cases. She is not licensed to work as a traditional RN. So she is out of work unless the state grants temporary privileges. Fortunately she has maintained her paramedic registry for back up employment.
Here are stats, not speculation the sky is falling and things will get worse as we don’t know:
Apparenty the death rate is declining. Even Fox News can dig up stats. Who knew? Death rate dropped from 4.06% to 1.84% in 7 days, and that was 8 days ago. Could be much lower now.
Even the reality challenged Brit Hume told some truth it seems:
In the fact-challenged world of the coronavirus COVID-19, there are still actual facts out there, and Fox News analyst hit a homer with a single post on Twitter.
“As the number of cases has expanded, the mortality rate has declined. It will likely decline even further if and when those without symptoms can be diagnosed and counted,” Hume tweeted.
He included a tweet from another Twitter user that laid out the death rate in the U.S. from COVID-19.
4.06% March 8 (22 deaths of 541 cases) 3.69% March 9 (26 of 704) 3.01% March 10 (30 of 994) 2.95% March 11 (38 of 1,295) 2.52% March 12 (42 of 1,695) 2.27% March 13 (49 of 2,247) 1.93% March 14 (57 of 2,954) 1.84% March 15 (68 of 3,680)...
4% death rate now below 2%. At this rate the number dead may be below or not much above the death rate from the flu last year of 80,000. It may be.
And stats are better than speculation the sky will fall.
Here are stats, not speculation the sky is falling and things will get worse as we don’t know:
Apparenty the death rate is declining. Even Fox News can dig up stats. Who knew? Death rate dropped from 4.06% to 1.84% in 7 days, and that was 8 days ago. Could be much lower now.
Even the reality challenged Brit Hume told some truth it seems:
In the fact-challenged world of the coronavirus COVID-19, there are still actual facts out there, and Fox News analyst hit a homer with a single post on Twitter.
“As the number of cases has expanded, the mortality rate has declined. It will likely decline even further if and when those without symptoms can be diagnosed and counted,” Hume tweeted.
He included a tweet from another Twitter user that laid out the death rate in the U.S. from COVID-19.
4.06% March 8 (22 deaths of 541 cases) 3.69% March 9 (26 of 704) 3.01% March 10 (30 of 994) 2.95% March 11 (38 of 1,295) 2.52% March 12 (42 of 1,695) 2.27% March 13 (49 of 2,247) 1.93% March 14 (57 of 2,954) 1.84% March 15 (68 of 3,680)...
4% death rate now below 2%. At this rate the number dead may be below or not much above the death rate from the flu last year of 80,000. It may be.
And stats are better than speculation the sky will fall.
Notice the new Johns Hopkins map. It looks like the old one but its different in a few key ways. First it has US counties and large cities. And second, it shows that nearly 80% of all counties in America have at least one case.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
I believe Chinese students went to American and European universities. Then We brought all our kids home. And many of them caught the virus and came home to all these little counties across America.
Hospital beds can be remedied by taking over local hotels. They are mostly empty. Use them for virus patients. It would keep the hospital safer. And they are basically all set up for housing patients.
So you are getting paid for this. Good job!
The article appears to assume every patient infected gets hospitalized. It’s actually a fairly small percentage that needs hospital care.
36% occupancy for a hospital? That hospital would have gone out of business years ago.
I read the article and these numbers are simply not accurate.
I think the article states 36% available beds or 64% occupancy.
My wife is a nurse in York,PA and she says their ER is the slowest she’s ever seen it. No wait times at all.
Not every single person who gets the virus needs a hospital.
The estimate of that number has been falling from 4% to less than 1%, as testing is increased.
It appears the article uses an estimate of about 2%.
I am like you, i thought it was over hyped to scare the population. Now i dont know what to think. Just sit it out on the side lines and watch I guess. And wash my hands like always
“Kaiser?” Tell der Kaiser ets verse dan dat!
With the way people travel around the globe these days, it’s going to be more like a 10-year event.
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