Due to the latest rise in COVID-19 cases, hospitals and emergency rooms are slammed.
“Volume has increased by 20-30% over what we typically see, and it takes longer when a patient is admitted to get a bed upstairs in the hospital, so there’s more people spending more time in the emergency department,” said Dr. Robert Poirier.
Dr. Robert Poirier, Washington University emergency medicine physician and clinical director of the Barnes-Jewish emergency department, talked about why getting testing at the ERs for asymptomatic and mild issues may be backing things up the system.
“There is a backup happening to the whole system, which isn’t just happening regionally but at the national level,” he said. “Hospitals are having trouble getting patients to nursing homes and rehabilitation centers because the institutions are full or short staffed, which makes the hospitals full.”
Poirier placed a heavy emphasis on the importance of only utilizing the ERs for emergencies.
“In the emergency department, we admit about one-third of the patients we see and if there are no beds upstairs, then they have to wait in the ER, so we back up with admitted patients, but we still have to see and handle all of the incoming patients every day, which has been between 250-300 patients a day,” he said. “We do get a certain number of patients coming in looking for the test because they are not able to find a place to do it in a timely fashion outside of the emergency department, even though it is not the place to get tested.”
Due to the significant spike in COVID-19 cases, Barnes Jewish Hospital is limiting elective surgeries in January.
“Barnes Jewish Hospital has reduced some of the elective surgery procedures, especially with patients that would typically be admitted before or after their surgery, which is to give us space in the hospital to handle the COVID patients,” Poirier said. “Since COVID started, it’s taken longer to get elective procedures scheduled.”
Dr. Hilary Babcock, medical director of Infection Prevention and Occupational Infection Prevention for BJC Healthcare, said the surge in COVID-19 cases has not made a huge impact on wellness checkups and procedures.
“Most of the impact of rescheduling elective procedures has been on surgical procedures and not on screening procedures, like mammograms and colonoscopies; they are both going forward,” she said. “It’s not impossible that if things continue to get worse, and if we felt the staff in those areas would be able to help in the hospital taking care of COVID patients, that we might need to cut back on those as well, but right now those are still going forward.”
Babcock emphasized getting the COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots are the best defense against the virus and will aid in reducing the hospitalizations stemming from the virus.
The continuous message that has been reiterated by health professionals is if someone has been exposed to the virus and are asymptomatic, they should wait for symptoms, then get tested.
“Volume has increased by 20-30% over what we typically see, and it takes longer when a patient is admitted to get a bed upstairs in the hospital, so there’s more people spending more time in the emergency department; that reduces the space we have to see and treat the increased number of patients coming to us to get evaluated,” Poirier said.
Poirier went on to say people should not be afraid to come to the emergency room if they need urgent medical attention. Getting a COVID-19 test is not a reason to visit an emergency room.
Patients hospitalized for COVID-19 exceeded 500 across BJC HealthCare Tuesday, Jan. 4.
In a statement, hospital representatives wrote this is beyond anything they have seen thus far in the pandemic.
Since nurses, staff and facilities are stretched to their limits, BJC made the difficult decision to postpone all elective procedures starting Thursday, Jan. 6, until further notice.
This will allow the healthcare provider to reassign staff to other areas of the hospital with a more urgent need, according to the statement.
