The two hospitals that serve most of Oregon’s pediatric intensive care units have moved to crisis-level care. This is the latest step for the state’s healthcare system to fight back. influx Number of cases of respiratory disease in children.
of crisis criteriawas developed by the Oregon Department of Health to help hospitals decide which patients to treat when resources are very limited, and to increase staffing so nurses can treat more patients. You can relax the placement criteria.
RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is the leading cause of hospitalization in infants and children. The virus is particularly dangerous for infants, and the number of children hospitalized with it has increased dramatically in recent weeks. The combination of the influx of patients and ongoing staffing shortages has put hospitals under severe strain.
Two hospitals, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at Oregon Health and Science University and Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, occupy most of the state’s pediatric intensive care unit beds. The hospital has a total capacity of 44 beds, but the actual number of staff beds varies.. Providence St. Vincent has four additional pediatric intensive care beds, which can be expanded to six if needed, a Providence spokesperson said.
A week ago, there were a total of 40 staffed pediatric intensive care beds statewide, three of which were available, an Oregon Department of Health spokeswoman said at the time. The OHA will release updated hospital capacity on Wednesday.
of announce their decision On Tuesday, Randall Children’s Hospital postponed non-urgent pediatric procedures, asked staff to work extra shifts, and said it was using “creative staffing options” to deliver care. I was. A Legacy Health spokeswoman did not disclose the number of pediatric intensive care beds available.
In a statement announcing the transition, Cindy Hill, vice president and chief nursing officer at Randall Children’s Hospital, said, “This represents an unprecedented outbreak of respiratory virus in both the time of year and the number of children affected. “We are implementing safe solutions to meet community demand for pediatric beds.”
Doernbecher activated the crisis criteria at 7:00 pm on Monday. An OHSU spokesperson said the pediatric intensive care unit is “at capacity”. Hospitals are not yet triaging treatments, but they are using crisis criteria to allocate resources more effectively.
A standard issued by the state in January this year states that hospitals “have severely limited emergency care resources, are oversubscribed, and have no option to transfer patients to emergency care standards. You can switch patients to other critical care facilities.”
The hospital action comes just a week after Gov. Kate Brown. declared a state of emergency Because hospitalizations for children are increasing rapidly. The declaration could free up hospital resources and increase flexibility in staffing beds. In her recent OHSU forecast, hospitalizations due to RSV are projected to peak at 129 her on 30 November, up from 77 her in the week ending 9 November.
— Fedor Zalkhin
