Posts: 15,142
Threads: 267
Joined: May 2020
Reputation:
32
(05-28-2021, 02:11 PM)cincydawg Wrote: https://www.12news.com/article/news/veri...3957c1e23b
Normal capacity usage is around 65% nationally. Some locations were highly stressed during COVID.
The need is to keep capacity from being overwhelmed, including care providers. A buddy of mine is a semi-retired OB GYN in Boston. He was asked to be on standby there back in the Fall because they were afraid of being overrun. He agreed even though his practice normally is not the kind of thing that can be delayed.
Shutting down makes sense to me if that capacity is being neared or the forecast is bad. If then it's a city by city basis, but only if they're over 100% capacity.
Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Posts: 7,100
Threads: 87
Joined: Feb 2019
Reputation:
27
The hospital where I just had my "procedure" was about to open last year this time, they rushed three floors ahead of time to accomodate expected COVID patients. They told me it was either not used at all or had one of two patients in it. I thought it was a good idea. The governor also had the convention center equipped to handle recovering COVID patients, it also was not or barely used. But we were lucky in a sense.
(On Tuesday of this week I had a catheter ablation which has cured me of a rather bad heart malady, flutter. the OR looked like a Star Trek set.)
I'm against all over generalizations.
Posts: 4,716
Threads: 21
Joined: May 2021
Reputation:
5
(05-28-2021, 07:46 AM)cincydawg Wrote: I would have shut down given what was known, and feared, at the time. My idea was to keep hospitals from being overrun. If you do that, the rest looks to me like area under the curve.
With the data was had at the time(15% fatality rate/9 times more infectious than the seasonal flu) I would have probably panicked and crapped myself like every other Governmental leader. I would have shut schools down in a second based upon my experience with those disease factories. And I would have been wrong just as DeWine was, however, I would not have continued to double/triple down on my errors.Â
NEVER should have played the "Essential Business" game, that was wrong from day one. We needed ONE set restrictions/precautions rather than two dozen individual sets of restrictions that also included "Best Practice" suggestions along with those restrictions.Â
Would have reopened schools last spring for two or three weeks to get the students back and ready for the Fall of 2020 and to allow the virus to spread at a controlled rate during the summer so we could have avoided the Fall/Winter disaster.
Posts: 18,301
Threads: 54
Joined: Feb 2019
Reputation:
32
05-28-2021, 11:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2021, 11:38 PM by 3rdgensooner.)
(05-28-2021, 02:11 PM)cincydawg Wrote: https://www.12news.com/article/news/veri...3957c1e23b
Normal capacity usage is around 65% nationally. Some locations were highly stressed during COVID.
The need is to keep capacity from being overwhelmed, including care providers. A buddy of mine is a semi-retired OB GYN in Boston. He was asked to be on standby there back in the Fall because they were afraid of being overrun. He agreed even though his practice normally is not the kind of thing that can be delayed.
Shutting down makes sense to me if that capacity is being neared or the forecast is bad. What people don't realize it's the staffing that is the bigger problem. Beds , ventilators, rooms, etc. can be expanded in number and extra capacity is already there. There aren't extra ICU doctors and nurses or many extra hospitalists and unit nurses either. No one is sitting around hardly doing anything waiting for a pandemic. They're mostly working long hard hours anyway. Since it takes years of training that capacity can't be readily expanded. So you postpone procedures and shift patients around to free up resources. Everyone already working high stress jobs are pushed harder and given more work. ICU nurses get one more patient. Hospitalists take on ICU patients. Borderline patients are more likely to stay on a regular floor. On and on. We were past best capacity in many places meaning quality of care suffered and we pushed at maximum capacity in many places. Talk to actual ICU nurses and doctors. A lot of burn out out there.
I'll point out the article you cited was written in November well before the worst spike in cases.
Posts: 7,100
Threads: 87
Joined: Feb 2019
Reputation:
27
Yup, hospital personel are busy all the time, some can be called in on emergency, but that is usually the limiter.
Best to try and keep that from getting over whelmed.
I had two elective surgeries after it hit, my shoulder in August last year and my catheter ablation Tuesday. The shoulder would not have been possible 2-3 months earlier, it was elective. The heart thing was quasi-elective. That last procedure is amazing, I am entirely better already. Thanks docs.
I'd guess that could not have been done during the spike, the electrophysiologist and his team would have been treating COVID patients.
The country experiences just under 2.9 million deaths per year to all causes, a predictable slowly rising figure. Over the last twelve months, it will be over 3.4 million. Influenza usually kills 20-60 thousand a year.
I'm against all over generalizations.
Posts: 18,301
Threads: 54
Joined: Feb 2019
Reputation:
32
05-29-2021, 09:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-29-2021, 09:57 AM by 3rdgensooner.)
(05-29-2021, 06:18 AM)cincydawg Wrote: Yup, hospital personel are busy all the time, some can be called in on emergency, but that is usually the limiter.
Best to try and keep that from getting over whelmed.
I had two elective surgeries after it hit, my shoulder in August last year and my catheter ablation Tuesday. The shoulder would not have been possible 2-3 months earlier, it was elective. The heart thing was quasi-elective. That last procedure is amazing, I am entirely better already. Thanks docs.
I'd guess that could not have been done during the spike, the electrophysiologist and his team would have been treating COVID patients.
The country experiences just under 2.9 million deaths per year to all causes, a predictable slowly rising figure. Over the last twelve months, it will be over 3.4 million. Influenza usually kills 20-60 thousand a year. At OU the family medicine service covered the patients for Warren Jackman basically the pioneer of EP medicine. Mostly ablations were done for Wolf-Parkinson-White patients. It was pretty easy because most were young and healthy. They came from all over the world to get diagnosed and treated. Now there's an EP doc in practically every cardiology group treating multiple kinds of arrhythmia, mostly atrial fibrillation. I remember being in the room during an EP study and Jackman had deliberately put a guy into ventricular tachycardia. The FP service along with medicine were the responders for any codes so the chief resident and I were getting panicky and asked him if we should call a code. He calmly walked over and defibrillated the guy and went back to looking at his dials. Scared the crap out of me.
Posts: 5,154
Threads: 134
Joined: Feb 2019
Reputation:
25
(05-29-2021, 06:18 AM)cincydawg Wrote: Yup, hospital personel are busy all the time, some can be called in on emergency, but that is usually the limiter.
Best to try and keep that from getting over whelmed.
I had two elective surgeries after it hit, my shoulder in August last year and my catheter ablation Tuesday. The shoulder would not have been possible 2-3 months earlier, it was elective. The heart thing was quasi-elective. That last procedure is amazing, I am entirely better already. Thanks docs.
I'd guess that could not have been done during the spike, the electrophysiologist and his team would have been treating COVID patients.
The country experiences just under 2.9 million deaths per year to all causes, a predictable slowly rising figure. Over the last twelve months, it will be over 3.4 million. Influenza usually kills 20-60 thousand a year. Glad your surgery went well and you are feeling better
|