Hospitals across the country are facing significant capacity strain and are enacting pandemic-era care coordination strategies to manage an influx in patients.
This time around, there is no one disease culprit. Instead, four illnesses are simultaneously causing a rising number of infections: COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and norovirus.
Norovirus is surging at levels not seen in more than a decade, with nearly 500 outbreaks reported from August to December, according to CDC data. The disease, commonly known as the stomach flu, is the leading cause of vomiting and diarrhea, responsible for around 109,000 hospitalizations in the U.S.
Meanwhile, transmission levels for all three respiratory viruses are on the rise in most areas of the country. Emergency department visits for RSV and flu are "very high," while visits for COVID are increasing from lower levels, according to the CDC.
Health systems are feeling the strain, reestablishing pandemic-era visitor restrictions to stem the spread and regularly convening with officials at nearby hospitals to maintain capacity for trauma patients.
In Minnesota, flu-related admissions are approaching the highest levels seen in five years.
"There's no space in the hospital," Brandon Trigger, MD, emergency department medical director at M Health Fairview's Southdale Hospital in Edina, Minn, told The Minnesota Star Tribune in a Jan. 9 report. "We're seeing patients in hallways, in triage bays, in every kind of nook and cranny of our hospital that we can find, and with any nursing or support staff we have."
The hospital plans to repurpose surgical, postpartum and mental health beds if necessary to admit patients and alleviate boarding in the ED, Dr. Trigger said.
Officials at Minneapolis-based Allina Health told the news outlet they are checking in with their facilities multiple times per day to monitor capacity and alleviate pressure on the busiest locations as quickly as possible.
"I would venture to say that emergency departments across the area and probably across the country, are very full right now," Erica Kaufman West, MD, an infectious disease physician at Mishawaka, Ind.-based Franciscan Health, told CBS Chicago.
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., put its ED on ambulance diversion earlier this week due to high patient numbers, the news outlet reported.
"I personally don't remember seeing anything that has been this bad, not in recent memory, at least," Dr. Kaufman West said, citing the spike in norovirus activity.