Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden Deploying Help To Hospitals In 6 Strained States; 4 Others Near ICU Breaking Point
USA Today: Biden Sending Medical Teams To Hospitals In Six States For COVID Help
The federal government is sending medical teams to six states – New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico – to help hospitals overburdened by COVID-19, USA TODAY has learned. President Joe Biden is expected to announce the deployments Thursday when discussing steps the administration is taking to address a surge in infections driven by the omicron variant, according to a White House official. His remarks come as hospitalizations for COVID-19 are setting records. Some hospitals are delaying elective surgeries as states are deploying National Guard members to health care facilities. (Groppe and Slack, 1/12)
CNN: 4 States Have Fewer Than 10% Of ICU Beds Left As Health Care Staffing Shortages Complicate Care
As a record number of Americans are infected with Covid-19, largely due to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant, some states' health care systems are beset with nearly full intensive care units. Four states have less than 10% remaining capacity in their ICUs: Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana and New Hampshire, according to data Wednesday from the US Department of Health and Human Services. (Caldwell, 1/13)
AP: Oregon Gov. Deploys National Guard To Hospitals Amid COVID Surge
Gov. Kate Brown is deploying Oregon National Guard members to help at hospitals that she says are under extreme pressure due to a COVID-19 omicron-fueled surge in hospitalizations. A total of 1,200 Guard members will be deployed to more than 50 hospitals across the state, KATU-TV reported. (1/13)
AP: Strike Teams Aid COVID-19 Battle, Pritzker Preaches Vaccine
Mobile strike teams of medical professionals are being dispatched to parts of Illinois most in need of assistance battling COVID-19 that has sickened record numbers and stretched health care resources thin, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday. But Pritzker and his public health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike continued to pound the drum that vaccinations, booster shots and masks are the best way to prevent the spread of the disease that has landed an unprecedented 7,100 people in hospitals across the state. (O'Connor, 1/12)
On hospitalization rates —
The Boston Globe: New Measure Of COVID Hospitalizations May Obscure Strain On System, But Will Help With Planning
“I am concerned that people will be hearing this [new data] and thinking we are twiddling our thumbs in the hospital,” said Dr. Maren Batalden, chief quality officer at Cambridge Health Alliance, which operates hospitals in Cambridge and Everett. In Massachusetts, the share of patients hospitalized primarily for COVID varied from about 50 percent to 78 percent, according to interviews with hospital executives. Advocates of the reporting change say the new numbers would shed light on the regions hardest hit by COVID and help direct resources, such as new antiviral drugs, to those areas. But others worry the methodology the Baker administration is using may miss patients acutely ill with COVID-19. (Lazar, 1/12)
The Atlantic: COVID-Hospitalization Numbers Are As Bad As They Look
But the “with COVID” hospitalization numbers are more complicated than they first seem. Many people on that side of the ledger are still in the hospital because of the coronavirus, which has both caused and exacerbated chronic conditions. And more important, these nuances don’t alter the real, urgent, and enormous crisis unfolding in American hospitals. Whether patients are admitted with or for COVID, they’re still being admitted in record volumes that hospitals are struggling to care for. “The truth is, we’re still in the emergency phase of the pandemic, and everyone who is downplaying that should probably take a tour of a hospital before they do,” Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Massachusetts, told me. (Yong, 1/12)
In more news about short-staffed hospitals —
Fox News: California Hospital Has 700 Employees In Isolation Because Of Covid
Hundreds of employees at one hospital in California are in self-isolation following COVID-19 exposure, amid a nationwide surge of the omicron variant, health officials said Wednesday. The Community Medical Center in Fresno announced 717 employees would remain in their homes, following the coronavirus protocols to self-isolate, and that 690 of those staff members had tested COVID positive, FOX 26 of Fresno reported. "This reflects how contagious the Omicron variant is to the public and how important it is to be vaccinated, wear a mask, and socially distance," Thomas Utecht, M.D., the hospital's senior vice president and system chief medical officer, told the news outlet. (Richard, 1/13)
Los Angeles Times: Omicron Sends Hospitals Into Overdrive With Sick Staff, Dying Patients And Doctors "Just Scraping By"
On a single day this week, 616 staffers called out sick with COVID-19 at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Without nearly a tenth of its workers — doctors, nurses, administrators and janitors — the hospital assigned the National Guard to help with an unrelenting swarm of patients, many of them critically ill. Such scenes around the nation have been brutal as the highly transmissible — if less deadly — Omicron variant has set a record of nearly 2 million infection cases each week. That surge has battered healthcare systems, sapped the morale of doctors and nurses, delayed thousands of surgeries, postponed treatments for life-threatening diseases such as cancer and turned hospitals into around-the-clock triage centers where nerves bristle and anger echoes alongside despair. (Kaleem and Baumgaertner, 1/13)
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Staffing Crisis At Clark County Hospitals Extends Into 2nd Week
An increasing number of sick employees and a continuing rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations have extended a staffing crisis at Southern Nevada hospitals for a second week, and there’s no indication that the current wave of the disease has peaked, the Nevada Hospital Association said Wednesday. “The NHA continues to work with state government officials to scope the problem and seek solutions that can be immediately implemented,” the trade group said in its weekly COVID-19 update. “In the meantime, hospitals continue to rely on overtime, team nursing, and other mitigation steps, realizing that these short-term solutions are not sustainable between the increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations coupled with the most challenging staff sick call rates.” (Dylan, 1/12)
Philadelphia Inquirer: COVID-19 Staffing Woes Hit Everywhere In Healthcare, Causing Hospital ERs To Overflow With Patients
Philadelphia-area hospitals are jammed with patients, but not always because they are truly sick enough to be there. Staff shortages at nursing homes and home-care companies, difficulty finding dialysis slots for COVID-19 patients, and even a lack of space in city homeless shelters are forcing hospitals to keep patients who should be discharged. The upshot is that emergency departments effectively have become inpatient units, sometimes even housing patients who need intensive care. (Brubaker and Whelan, 1/13)
KHN: Incidental Cases And Staff Shortages Make Covid’s Next Act Tough For Hospitals
The Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida, on Jan. 11 was treating 80 covid-19 patients — a tenfold increase since late December. Nearly half were admitted for other medical reasons. The surge driven by the extremely infectious omicron variant helped push the South Florida hospital with 206 licensed beds to 250 patients. The rise in cases came as the hospital struggled with severe staff shortages while nurses and other caregivers were out with covid. (Weber, Galewitz and Miller, 1/13)
Medications are also in short supply —
Stat: A Cascade Of Omicron-Driven Shortages Puts Hospitals In A Bind
The Covid-19 medications are supposed to keep people out of the hospital — and to infectious disease doctor Ogechika Alozie, these patients were perfect candidates. One was a vaccinated elderly man who’d tested positive for Covid after cold-like symptoms began spreading through his family. But his family couldn’t find him an open slot for an infusion of monoclonal antibodies. His granddaughter, Krystal Tejeda, called and called. “I couldn’t get an answer from anybody. Mailbox full, mailbox full,” she said. He was sent home after his first two ER visits. On the third, he was admitted, his skin going purple. (Boodman and Cueto, 1/13)
