Covid and Hospitals: How are things now?

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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.

10 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

Update.
The Good! The refrigerated semi has been removed. Our admitted COVID/PUIs are down to around 100.  24 on vents. 

Are any of your vented patients coming off?  From what I hear at my hospital and read on other threads, it seems like vents are not working once people's lungs are so damaged they can't survive on heated highflow or bipap.  Having 1/4 of your patients on vents seems really high to me.  Are the vents helping?

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5 minutes ago, turtlesRcool said:

Are any of your vented patients coming off?  From what I hear at my hospital and read on other threads, it seems like vents are not working once people's lungs are so damaged they can't survive on heated highflow or bipap.  Having 1/4 of your patients on vents seems really high to me.  Are the vents helping?

I don’t work in the ICU so I’m mostly speculating. There were 31 patients on vents a week ago and more the week before. The number has been steadily dropping and not all due to deaths but I don’t have the actual numbers. Per the ID attending I work with patients are coming off but remain hospitalized for weeks afterward. The reason we have a high percentage on vents is because I work at a quaternary center so we get the patients lower level hospitals cannot manage. 

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Thank you for the update. My husband got his vaccine Saturday right before the storm and CVS in Lake Worth was doing an excellent job. Hopefully now that will resume and you all can get a break!

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
On 2/19/2021 at 7:48 PM, turtlesRcool said:

Are any of your vented patients coming off?  From what I hear at my hospital and read on other threads, it seems like vents are not working once people's lungs are so damaged they can't survive on heated highflow or bipap.

Our success rates on vented patients has been pretty dismal. We're a smaller ICU and fortunately down to only three vented patients right now. Of the last 25-30 we have had on the vent, since the beginning of the year, only two came off the vent and lived. One has been discharged, the other is still on a medical surgical floor but the nurses there said he's failing to thrive at this point as well. It's been really disappointing that we've had such limited success, especially after all we put them through with proning, some are paralyzed, difficult sedation, etc. 

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

That is pretty dismal.  Wow.

 

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Well, after a couple of pleasant months with a comfortingly low number of covid patients in the hospitals I work at, we are now on the rise again. At one point we had only 16 covid inpatients, and I'm not sure where we're at now but have again designated a full med/surg floor and full ICU for covid. I assume it's the same elsewhere.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
7 minutes ago, SansNom said:

Well, after a couple of pleasant months with a comfortingly low number of covid patients in the hospitals I work at, we are now on the rise again. At one point we had only 16 covid inpatients, and I'm not sure where we're at now but have again designated a full med/surg floor and full ICU for covid. I assume it's the same elsewhere.

Same here. We went from single digits with one med/surg unit and a handful of ICU beds to know over 50 with 2 units

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36 confirmed. 16 on vents. I am in a tertiary hospital. A good chunk of the ventilated patients are long-termers. We have begun to do lung transplants on post-Covid patients with irreversible damage.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

Those non compliant with mitigation or vaccination will prolong the American experience with covid. 

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1 hour ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Those non compliant with mitigation or vaccination will prolong the American experience with covid. 

Yeah. I've been asked a few times why I think numbers are going back up and I'm surprised it's not obvious to even non-medical people. Mask mandates are being dropped everywhere, business restrictions are being lifted, Spring break just happened, and people everywhere are just mingling more in general.

I suspect that this surge won't be as big as the last simply because 20 some percent of the population has been vaccinated and another 20 some percent has had covid, so a significant percentage of the population is carrying antibodies. Hopefully we can double at the least the vaccine numbers by Summer time.

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I'm not overly worried about the increased cases. I agree with the thought that the current "surge" isn't going to be as big as the last one. I think this is what we are going to see for quite a bit longer. Ups and downs with the "ups" mostly being smaller and smaller and the downs lasting longer. We might see bigger spikes around the Winter holidays. Mask wearing is going to be around for awhile but probably not mandates. Anyone who thought this was just going to steadily drop off to zero is going to be disappointed.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
3 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

Anyone who thought this was just going to steadily drop off to zero is going to be disappointed.

I don't think there are too many of those thinkers in this group.  It seems that most AN members are realistic about this public health crisis. IMV

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