Today, several hospital officials in Greater Kansas City told metro area elected officials that they are concerned about hospital capacity, with COVID-19 numbers on the rise.
Medical and hospital executives from the University of Kansas Health System and five other hospitals in the Kansas City area met with elected officials this morning, remotely, to discuss the rising case numbers.
Hospitals are concerned about capacity, said Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at KU Health System.
He said data with federal agencies about the hospital capacity in Kansas City does not reflect the true picture. While it looked like there were 2,000 open beds and 300 intensive care beds available in the Kansas City area, that figure did not reflect the realities of staffed and available hospital beds that could be used, with resources around them to take care of patients, he said.
Because of a staffing shortage, the number of available beds is different from the number of licensed beds, he said.
According to hospital officials, on Nov. 3 there were 153 non-intensive care unit beds available in a sample of 11 hospitals in the Greater Kansas City area, according to Dr. David Wild of the KU Health System. About 76 ICU beds could be staffed, he said.
There were 32 ICU beds that were physically available, with 22 that could be staffed, according to Dr. Wild.
When it comes to staffing, the hospitals can try to use temporary agencies for staffing, but they are all trying to borrow from the same pool, Dr. Stites said.
“The real crunch is there aren’t enough beds available,” he said.
Dr. Stites urged everyone to practice social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
They have already had a few instances of having to turn away patients from other hospitals that are several hours away.
Hospitals do not want to have to take steps such as canceling or postponing surgeries, and the doctors said it is possible to control the virus by wearing masks, socially distancing and avoiding crowds.
Dr. Stites said the seven-day average of cases in the Greater Kansas City area was trending to 700 new patients a day. On Monday, the area hospitals surveyed had 277 COVID-19 patients in their hospitals, and by Friday, it was at 318, Dr. Stites said.
Dr. Stites said it is not the doctors’ place to tell elected officials what to do about the higher numbers, but it was their role to alert them to it, and leaders would make their own decisions.
Dr. Wild said they are not turning away patients with emergencies arriving in ambulances. At one point, however, they had to turn down some people who wanted to transfer from another hospital, because they didn’t have available beds, according to Dr. Stites.
Some rural hospitals are calling urban hospitals five to six hours away to see if they can transfer patients because they are full, according to Dr. Wild.
The hospitals are not yet at capacity, but if rising rates continue, it may reach it very soon, according to the doctors.
Dr. Stites said they are not saying it’s a crisis at this point. They are very concerned, however, about a rise in COVID-19 cases and an increased number of patients in the hospital.
The doctors did not recommend that patients postpone their own needed surgeries, because some conditions may get worse if they don’t have medical care, according to the doctors.
The doctors did not have an estimate on when the hospitals might reach capacity, as the numbers could either increase or decrease. If case numbers continue to increase, the hospitals will probably be overwhelmed, according to the doctors. It could happen within a few weeks if people don’t act to stop the spread of COVID-19 by masking and socially distancing.
On Friday morning, KU Health System reported its highest number of active COVID-19 patients, at 53. There were 18 in the intensive care unit and 10 on ventilators, said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU Health System. There were an additional 28 COVID-19 patients still in the hospital but not classified as active patients because they were beyond 10 days.
The number of patients at HaysMed in Has, Kansas, also was up on Friday morning, for a total of 22 patients, with 19 active and three in the recovery phase.