Hospitals are being overrun as another wave of Covid-19 infections is filling available beds and stretching intensive-care units. And university teaching hospitals aren’t immune to the surge. A Chronicle analysis has found that one in five hospitals that were overcrowded as of December 17 are teaching hospitals. Eighteen such hospitals, including ones affiliated with the Universities of Oklahoma and Florida, are overflowing with patients, with more than 100 percent of their beds filled.
The Chronicle analyzed facility-level data recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and identified more than 150 institutions as teaching hospitals because they have a university or college in their name or are members of the Association of American Medical Colleges. The federal data include such details as the number of inpatient and ICU beds filled, and the number of suspected Covid-19 patients.
The Chronicle analysis focused on the average occupancy of total beds from December 11 to 17.
While there isn’t a universally-agreed-upon threshold to define when a hospital is too full, research has shown that hospitals start to see increased mortality when bed occupancy is 90 percent or greater, said Archelle Georgiou, a co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Covid-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project.
“If your general hospital beds have a high occupancy rate, it’s a cascading effect that affects so many other things about patient flow and patient care,” Georgiou said.
Once less than 10 percent of beds are available, hospitals face added strains. Among them are the increased risk of staff exposure to the coronavirus, a lack of available beds to admit new patients or accommodate those discharged from intensive care, and shortages of personal protective equipment. For smaller hospitals, the effects of such a wave are felt more quickly.
“The threshold for sending people home changes, and sicker people are needing to manage at home,” Georgiou said.
Some states, including Maryland and Connecticut, have a large number of teaching hospitals among the hospitals approaching peak capacity.
“Since so many university hospitals are in metropolitan, urban areas, because they are teaching hospitals, they serve populations that are at higher risk for Covid as well as many other conditions,” Georgiou said. “They may be disproportionately affected by this pandemic and a particular risk for high occupancy rates.”
