Local hospitals on ‘code red’ because of COVID? Not quite
Table of Contents
With COVID-19 numbers rising quickly in Henrico County and the region, there’s been some chatter online and through social media recently that some local hospitals have entered a “code red” situation in which available beds are significantly limited.
But in actuality, local hospitals have not been overwhelmed by COVID patients.
The “code red” term refers to a designation used by emergency dispatchers if a particular hospital is on “diversion” status, meaning that it’s unable to accept emergency patients (usually temporarily) for some reason.
Some local hospitals (though apparently none in Henrico) have been in that situation recently, but it’s typically been short-lived, according to Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association Vice President of Communications Julian Walker.
HCA Virginia spokesman Jeff Caldwell told the Citizen that the group’s two hospitals in Henrico – Henrico Doctors’ Hospital and Parham Doctors’ Hospital – haven’t experienced that type of situation recently. Bon Secours spokeswoman Jenna Green referred the question to Walker.
The VHHA uses seven metrics to evaluate the operational status of hospitals on a three-level scale, Walker said:
• Level 1 – conventional (standard);
• Level 2 – contingency;
• Level 3 – crisis.
Recently, he said, hospitals officially have been at Level 1 but realistically have fluctuated somewhere between Levels 1 and 2, because of the uncertainties caused by the pandemic.
The metrics that VHAA officials use to examine hospital status include:
• the COVID-19 7-day trend;
• the ICU capacity (both in terms of staffing and surgical capacity);
• the number of ventilators in use;
• the number of hospitals on diversion;
• the number of hospitals with staffing shortages;
• the number of hospitals with a PPE shortage.
“Some diversion issues have tended to be short-lived,” Walker said, referencing the implementation of code red status. “You might have them one day and then they’re not an issue the next day.”
In the Richmond region, nearly 89% of hospital inpatient beds are occupied – about 15.7% by COVID patients, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The former level is rated “moderate risk” and the latter “higher risk” on a five-point scale.
Statewide, VHHA officials closely monitor the ICU occupancy levels of their member hospitals (110 in total), Walker said. Those have fluctuated generally around the 80% range, he said; on Wednesday, the VHHA reported them to be at 84% across its member hospitals. Pre-pandemic, those ICU occupancy rates were closer to 67% or so, he said.
But with surge beds available for implementation at most hospitals that treat COVID patients, the actual capacity to handle ICU patients is much larger, Walker said. Factoring those 842 surge beds into current ICU levels, the ICU occupancy statewide would drop to just 57%, according to the VHHA dashboard.
Still, Walker cautioned, simply having bed space isn’t enough; hospitals also must have enough staff to handle patients who might fill them, which can be impacted by COVID outbreaks and related quarantining.
“If you have a proportion of staff impacted by that, it can affect available staff that you have, which can have implications for treatment,” Walker said.
Staff quarantines could become less common in the coming weeks, though, as many healthcare workers complete their second and final doses of COVID vaccines.
