HOW TO INCREASE ICU BED CAPACITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC CRISIS?

https://intensivecareathome.com/how-to-increase-icu-bed-capacity-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-crisis/

HOW TO INCREASE ICU BED CAPACITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC CRISIS?

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In this week’s blog, I want to offer solutions to intensive care units and hospitals

How to increase ICU bed capacity during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis?

So today’s blog topic is how to get more ICU beds with less infection risk.

It has been very interesting to see in recent weeks and recent months that governments and health care services and health care systems all around the world are desperately trying to ramp up their ICU capacities. For example, in Australia, there are currently about 2200 intensive care beds and almost all of them all of the time they’re running at full capacity. There is no COVID-19 pandemic crisis needed to keep ICUs at and above capacity at all times.

With current predictions and modeling for when the peak of the COVID-19 patients needing ICU treatment hits next month in May or in June, there won’t be enough ICU beds in the country. Some hospitals are already preparing for the worst by trying to have extra ICU beds available in recovery theater, Emergency Department or Ward areas.

Some credible sources paint a worst case scenario picture with ICUs needing up to 330% more ICU beds in the next few weeks or months. And I’ll put a link below this video to an article on the ABC website that’s highlighting the increase in ICU beds up to 330%. It has also been talked about creating some “makeshift ICU” is like the military does in war zones, with the difference that those makeshift ICU could be, for example, here in Melbourne at the exhibition center, or what we’ve seen in recent weeks in Central Park, in New York, or in other big cities around the world, like in London as well.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/coronavirus-australia-covid-19-icu-beds-ventilators-hospitals/1209042

Nobody has ever asked that if we need to dramatically increase ICU bed capacity quickly where resources are coming from?

It might be possible to get more physical beds get more ventilators etc. But who’s going to operate those ventilators and who’s going to look after those patients?

With ICU nurses and ICU doctors already in high demand, can you just increase bed capacity by hundreds or thousands of ICU beds out of thin air without having the appropriately trained staff that can safely look after those critically ill patients needing ventilation, induced coma, prone positioning, inotropes and vasopressors and the list goes on.

To look after critically ill patients safely, doctors and nurses have to go through many years of specialized training either theoretical and practical, both is needed.

In my point of view, after having worked in intensive care for 20 years, it’s scary to hear that all of a sudden doctors and nurses without ICU experience are being fast tracked to look after some of the sickest patients that ICUs have ever seen. This is a scary scenario, as the margin for error in ICU is very little when you’re dealing with lives in the hands of ICU doctors and ICU nurses.

Another solution to deal with this, of needing to drastically and dramatically increase ICU bed capacity is simply of course, to use more of our intensive care at home services.

We are already operational, proven and up and running. No need to set up makeshift ICUs in a park or in an exhibition center or anywhere else where it could potentially be unsafe. We can help ICUs very quickly to increase bed capacity for COVID-19 patients by simply taking long term intensive care patients home and increase ICU bed capacity very quickly...

Continue reading at: https://intensivecareathome.com/how-to-increase-icu-bed-capacity-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-crisis/