I don't think I am. In an earlier job as a Critical Care Technician I frequently helped transport patients from the ICU to the OR and back. It is complicated with a lot that can go wrong. There are major risks that would not be justified except when necessary for the patient's own benefit. You would never accept the risk to transfer a patient to another hospital unless it was in the patient's best interest. Certainly not for the benefit of a hypothetical patient who may or may not ever come.
The continuity of patient records may or may not be an issue, depending on whether or not the two hospitals share the same medical record system and the same database. I work with a colleague who worked on NYU's electronic medical record system until about 3 years ago. I'll ask him if they share medical records with Bellevue.
My point is that this move, if it's being made, is not simply to make room available for some future patients who may or may not ever materialize. I'm not saying that the powers-that-be know that there are lots of other cases out there. I don't think that's the explanation. But there's something more to the story, and I think one of the other posters had some realistic possibilities. Perhaps it's as simple as the patients (or their families) demanding that they be moved because they don't want them on the same floor as an Ebola patient, or cared for by the same team of doctors and nurses. If that's the case, I would think that Bellevue would want to keep that under wraps and would do something very similar to what they're doing.
And I think that that would be something the government would cooperate in because they don't want--and legitimately so--people getting the idea that they shouldn't go to any hospital where even one Ebola patient is being treated. If such behavior becomes common knowledge then it would become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy--once an Ebola patient arrives at a hospital's door, then they lose all their other patients. I can't think of a faster way to bring down the entire healthcare system than allowing that kind of panic to take hold. And it would only help to accelerate the spread of the disease.
I'm not saying there is evil intent or dishonesty behind the move. I'm only saying we're not being given the whole story.
I concur some with scouter. When I worked in a trauma center, there were times they wouldn’t even risk moving a patient to the OR, performing the procedures in the ICU room. and that center’s ICU rooms were almost always full (8-10 of them for trauma, 8-10 for cardiac).