Alex1Powell Authors Megan McArdle
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Seeing a lot of this circulating on the right, so let me explain why folks are worried even though it is not literally true that every ICU bed in the country is occupied at the moment.
#1, the big worry is ICU space, not hospital beds, and as you can see from this very thread, ICU utilization is running well above hospital utilization generally.
#2 The constraint on ICUs isn't beds, it's staff. ICU beds are (relatively) easy to build. They're not much good if the only people you have to staff them are the cafeteria workers.
#3 It's true that ICUs can flex to deal with high utilization. But to do so, they have to:
1) Stretch existing workers to do more (potentially compromising care)
2) Recruit workers from other specialties (potentially compromising care)
2) Hire additional temporary workers
Hiring temps is the best strategy. The problem is, it's a good strategy that's hard to implement when a staggering fraction of the nation's hospitals are all having the same problems, requiring exactly the same skills from the same shrinking pool of workers, at the same time.
it's disappointing to see that we are back in the "media scare stories about hospitals" stage.
— el gato malo (@boriquagato) December 7, 2020
the good news is that, just like last time, this is simply not the case.
they either have no idea what they are saying or are seeking to mislead.
let's look.https://t.co/eWyj2txAh6
#1, the big worry is ICU space, not hospital beds, and as you can see from this very thread, ICU utilization is running well above hospital utilization generally.
#2 The constraint on ICUs isn't beds, it's staff. ICU beds are (relatively) easy to build. They're not much good if the only people you have to staff them are the cafeteria workers.
#3 It's true that ICUs can flex to deal with high utilization. But to do so, they have to:
1) Stretch existing workers to do more (potentially compromising care)
2) Recruit workers from other specialties (potentially compromising care)
2) Hire additional temporary workers
Hiring temps is the best strategy. The problem is, it's a good strategy that's hard to implement when a staggering fraction of the nation's hospitals are all having the same problems, requiring exactly the same skills from the same shrinking pool of workers, at the same time.