By 
Spencer Custodian and Brandon Pho The |
Already at record levels of coronavirus patients, Orange County hospitals are likely to see even more virus patients in the coming weeks after two weeks of sharp increases in newly informed cases.
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“I will say that overall we saw an increase in cases in the past two weeks at various hospitals in Orange County and we hope that this will lead to an increase in hospitalizations, in fact, it is leading to an increase in hospitalizations.” UC Irvine said. Dr. Saahir Khan, who works in the intensive care unit of the ICU Medical Center.
After virus patients are admitted to the hospital, Khan said some patients will be transferred to the ICU soon after.
“Unfortunately that is followed by ICU admissions in a week or two, given the nature of the disease.”
According to the county, just under 40 percent of ICU beds are available. Health care agency.
County officials said that number reflects current beds, not ICU beds that can be created by immediate capacity expansion, known as increased capacity.
But Khan said there are still not enough staff for those beds.
“So a recent example is Eisenhower Hospital in Palm Springs, they have the US military coming in and helping them with personnel, particularly. Although they have enough beds for patients, they have to get outside staff, ”said Khan.
“By the numbers, I’m concerned that we get to that point.”
County Health Agency Agency director and acting public health officer Clayton Chau, at a news conference on Thursday, said the number of beds in the ICU “has been fluctuating up and down” and was hesitant to say that the situation was stable.
“The bottom line is that we have capacity when it comes to available beds,” he said, but added that county officials “always have concerns about staffing” and that the county Health Care Agency “from the start.” he entered into “various contracts” with the temporary nurse. groups that “will connect with individual hospitals that have support staff (needs).”
He added that state officials could also provide additional nursing resources, and that they already have a hospital in the county.
Meanwhile, the Coronavirus has now killed 466 people out of 27,904 confirmed cases, according to the OC Health Care Agency.
The total deaths include 11 new deaths reported on Thursday.
The county also reported 873 new positive cases.
There are also 711 people hospitalized as of Thursday, 11 fewer than Wednesday, and there are 245 people in intensive care units.
Virus patients stay longer than virus-free ICU patients, Khan said.
“The average time a coronavirus patient is in the ICU is on the order of two weeks, it is improving slightly with some of our treatment protocols, but that is much longer than the average time that patients without a coronavirus stay in the ICU which is closer to three days. ”
Just over 334,000 tests have been conducted across OC, which is home to approximately 3.2 million people.
The OC Emergency Medical Services office has been tracking hospitalizations through its daily status report. Reports have been expressing concern about hospitalization trends.
“Hospital overvoltage plans are already activated to some extent as conditions worsen,” he says on Wednesday. status report from the county emergency medical services office.
“The trends are very worrying and we can continue to expect that the impact on the health system will worsen in the coming days and weeks,” the report said.
Khan said he is concerned that critical care nurses in ICUs have too many patients.
“The standard ratio for intensive care is two patients per nurse. And the reason for this is that ICU patients need to be monitored more closely and the main way to do it is to have nurses whose care is on the patient, ”she said.
“In my experience, whenever that ratio is not maintained, it can lead to harm to patient care. As I mentioned above based on trends and numbers, I am concerned that we may have difficulty maintaining that ratio in Orange County. ”
Here’s the latest on virus numbers across Orange County from county data:
Spencer Custodio is a reporter for the Voice of OC staff. You can contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio
Brandon Pho is a writer for the Voice of OC staff and a member of the corps for Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @photherecord.
