As COVID Fills ICU Beds, Dominoes Fall Throughout Hospitals

Oct. 12, 2021 -- The filling up of the nation’s intensive attraction portion beds has been header quality for months now. As waves of COVID-19 cascade crossed the country, hospitals person been pushed to capacity.

You tin work the headlines astir a deficiency of ICU beds, but it mightiness beryllium hard to representation what that looks like, exactly. How does it interaction diligent attraction passim the hospital? What is it similar for staffing? And what astir getting resources to the close people?

Here’s a snapshot of the domino effect of a strategy successful crisis.

From Normal to Overflow

To recognize the interaction of ICUs that are afloat oregon implicit capacity, it’s important to recognize what goes connected successful these captious units of the hospital.

“Prior to the pandemic, ICUs mostly cared for patients with respiratory distress, sepsis, strokes, oregon terrible cardiac issues,” explains Rebecca Abraham, a captious attraction caregiver who founded Acute connected Chronic, which offers assistance to patients navigating the wellness attraction system. “These are radical who are precise sick and request changeless care.”

Allocation of nurses to these units is mostly recommended connected a 1-to-1, oregon sometimes 1-to-2 ratio. These are patients who necessitate specialized instrumentality not recovered elsewhere successful the hospital, similar ventilators, bedside dialysis, specialized heart-catheterization machines, and drains, among different things.

These patients besides necessitate aggregate laboratory measurements, often taken hourly, and accelerated changes successful medications. “Their conditions alteration rapidly and often, truthful you don’t privation to miss an assessment,” says Abraham. “But erstwhile we person to grow our nurse-to-patient ratio, we cannot show patients similar we should.”

Today, ICUs are present afloat of precise sick COVID patients, connected apical of these “normal” critically sick patients, with dire consequences. “The ratios person had to grow acold beyond what is standard,” Abraham explains. “You mightiness person 4 to six nurses progressive with 1 patient.”

COVID patients often request to beryllium placed face-down by staff, for instance. To bash this decently and safely, a afloat squad indispensable beryllium successful spot to forestall tubing and lines from coming retired of the patient’s body. And erstwhile sick COVID patients necessitate intubation, nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, and others indispensable beryllium involved. All of this pulls these indispensable unit members distant from their different duties and mean attraction activities.

Full ICUs besides necessitate that nurses and different unit who are not specifically trained and certified successful captious attraction measurement in. “These nurses are inactive taking attraction of different patients, too,” says Abraham. “When a diligent crashes and the nurses aren’t trained for that, prime of attraction suffers.”

Where ICUs erstwhile had an admitting caregiver disposable and a spot for a caller patient, present that would beryllium a luxury, says Megan Brunson, a captious attraction caregiver astatine Medical City Dallas Hospital who spoke connected behalf of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. “Everyone hopes not to get a caller admittance connected their shifts,” she admits.

There was already a nursing shortage earlier the pandemic, and the strain that packed ICUs is putting connected wellness attraction is lone making the occupation worse.

Brunson says the crush of COVID has reached a nationalist crisis.

“More important than the speech surrounding however galore beds are disposable is however galore nurses we have,” she says.

Abraham agrees.

“As the ICUs get busier and stretched thinner, attraction suffers,” she says. “That’s not what nurses want, oregon wherefore they got into the field.”

A survey by wellness attraction staffing company Vivian successful April recovered that 43% of nurses were considering quitting during the pandemic, including 48% of ICU nurses.

It’s not conscionable nurses. Doctors are besides considering leaving the professional. An April study published successful JAMA Network Open recovered that 21% of each wellness attraction workers "moderately oregon precise seriously" considered leaving the workforce, and 30% considered cutting their hours.

Beyond the ICU

As ICUs capable up, the effect multiplies passim the full hospital. “One happening that nary 1 is talking astir is the information that our proviso closets are wiped out,” says Brunson. “We’re trying to troubleshoot astir that. We’re besides inactive rationing PPE [personal protective equipment], aft each this time.”

Every 4 hours, says Brunson, unit astatine her infirmary huddle to find wherever to nonstop resources. “In a triage situation, there’s lone truthful overmuch you tin bash with what you have,” she explains. “We tin lone instrumentality attraction of the precedence needs.”

Abraham says that often today, exigency rooms indispensable clasp critically sick patients. “Emergency attraction doesn’t halt for that,” she says. “The patients are inactive coming in. There’s little monitoring, little titration [adjusting meds], and successful immoderate cases, sending ambulances to different hospitals.”

The bottommost line, according to Abraham, is that afloat ICUs necessitate that hospitals bypass each their modular procedures.

“That’s ne'er a bully happening due to the fact that it leads to delays successful care,” she says. “Critically sick patients spell to floors without specialized staff, and mistakes tin happen.”

On apical of it all, nurses and different unit are burned out.

“Nurses are quitting oregon moving to little stressful settings,” says Brunson. “Many are becoming traveling nurses due to the fact that they tin marque a ton of wealth successful a abbreviated play of clip and past instrumentality a break.”

Brunson says that to her mind, the astir important happening is having the close caregiver for the close patient. “I’m connected an big portion but had to propulsion successful a pediatric caregiver the different day,” she says. “She was a speedy learn, but she’s inactive constricted by her training.”

In spite of it all, some Abraham and Brunson clasp retired anticipation for a brighter aboriginal successful the nation’s hospitals.

“I’m holding my breath, but I’m optimistic,” says Brunson. “I person anticipation for 3 years down the road, but we request to crank retired caller nurses for the system, radical to get vaccinated, and a semipermanent strategy.”