Covid and Hospitals: How are things now?

[CrunchRN]

Just curious. Here in DFW I see hospitalizations are rising to 14%. How are things in the hospitals? Are things relatively normal? No more furloughs?

Please share. I am not in acute care, but I am of course very interested in the effects on acute care staff.

[Guest219794]

11 hours ago, CrunchRN said:

Interesting. How does is compare with pre-pandemic flu season loads and diversion or is there absolutely no comparison at all?

No comparison.  Not even close.

 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Thanks for the updates. They say our peak should be easing off here, but of course the staffing shortages at the hospitals are critical. If nothing else, I hope this ends up empowering nurses to have more say in how things are done finally.

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

9 hours ago, CrunchRN said:

They say our peak should be easing off here, but of course the staffing shortages at the hospitals are critical.

We are down to 17 critical care patients in our hospital was 12 critical care beds. That's from 29 total last week. We still have six patients on ventilators outside of ICU.

Unfortunately, almost every is still dying, COVID or not. Our reintubation rates this month are higher than I've ever seen. I'm sure that some of our poor patient outcomes are related to larger patient assignments, and critical care patients being care for by nurses that were trained in "crisis situations" so inadequately- with critical care patients. Nurses that have a total of one hour of ventilator training are now considered "critical care nurses". Some are very cognizant of asking for help, but some have decided they're just as good as any other critical care nurse- those ones scare me. 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

I have no doubt that is a contributing factor JBMom. Inexperienced nurses, 3 ICU patients being too many even for the experienced nurses. Not enough support staff.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

These are the stats for my local hospital today.  They appear to be typical to me.

[macawake, MSN]

2 hours ago, subee said:

These are the stats for my local hospital today.  They appear to be typical to me.

So out of 122 patients hospitalized for Covid, only five have received their vaccine booster dose. And none of the five require ICU care. That sounds about right. The numbers are very similar in my hospital in a completely different corner of the world (Europe). 

[ikarus01]

7 hours ago, subee said:

These are the stats for my local hospital today.  They appear to be typical to me.

do you know if your hospital reports the unvaccinated as the CDC does? If you took 1 dose of 2, for example, you fall under the unvaccinated category. Or do those stats consider 1 dose of 2 as vaccinated?

Quote

 

In general, people are considered fully vaccinated: ±

2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series, such as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or
2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine

If you don’t meet these requirements, regardless of your age, you are NOT fully vaccinated. Keep taking all precautions until you are fully vaccinated.

 

 

39 minutes ago, ikarus01 said:

do you know if your hospital reports the unvaccinated as the CDC does? If you took 1 dose of 2, for example, you fall under the unvaccinated category. Or do those stats consider 1 dose of 2 as vaccinated?

 

Data review will be intense in an ongoing fashion.  It will be studied to determine if there was any benefit to an incomplete primary vaccination series for covid. Failure to complete the recommended primary series for a vaccine always gets one the official label of unvaccinated.  Experience with VPD has taught us some things about public vaccination and need for boosters in some situations.  

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Thanks for that update subee. It is really interesting to see way the cases are instead of just poorly written ADD style news stories.

 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Things have really changed here. Positivity rate down to 12% from almost 40%. Covid hospitalizations rate in low 10% ish. Hope this lasts.

[Wuzzie]

In my hospital system:

88 Covid patients

51 vents (includes recovered but still on ventilators)

35 in the ICU

In my state:

1929 hospitalized (down from nearly 5k)

395 in ICU

Positivity: 10.6

Case per 100K: 22.8

Mask mandates will likely be removed in the next 2 weeks. 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Thank you for the update Wuzzie. Hopefully this really does signal a lasting change.