Six details:
1. The system uses smart technology and is managed by internal medicine physicians staffing the coordination center.
2. Every day, Maryland hospital systems update the centralized database with data on available beds, staffing levels and the influx of critical and acute patients overnight. When a hospital is overwhelmed and needs to transfer a patient, a medical staffer calls the coordinator to explain the patient’s case and determine the level of care the patient might need.
3. The system coordinator can do a computer search to identify the optimal location for the new patient and follows up with the receiving hospital to confirm that a staffed bed is available.
4. The coordination initiative goes beyond COVID-19 patients; as hospitals fill up, a cardiac or stroke patient who needs critical care can be sent to a regional facility that isn’t overflowing with intubated COVID-19 patients. Patients who need serious, but not critical care, can also be moved to make more beds available for the growing COVID-19 outbreak.
5. Earlier in the pandemic and before the pandemic, patient hospital transfers were done among hospitals owned and managed by the same system. This new, updated system allows hospitals statewide to coordinate, regardless of ownership.
6. In Maryland, more than 85 percent of staffed acute and intensive care unit beds are filled, according to a state health department analysis last week, the Post reports.
More articles on data analytics:
Purdue University, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital & more systems join data initiative for COVID-19 drug discovery
North Dakota data backlog prompts COVID Tracking Project to switch death reporting metrics
Carnegie Mellon adds de-identified claims data to COVID-19 forecasting tool
