Originally posted by G
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The other part that is frustrating is that the hospitals have to report their capacity at a given time each day. If 3 patients are transferred 20 minutes before cutoff, it'll look like there's capacity even if those beds get spoken for 30 minutes later. So functionally there is never an open bed but the reporting may show capacity. We do have a statewide bed coordinator now so that the rural hospitals can call them first and be told "it looks like hospitals A-P are full, try hospital Q, R or S" to avoid them needing to make 30, 40, 50 transfer calls. Of course, because of the "shadow ICU" situation I described in the previous post (ICU caliber patients needing to remain on the floor), we are trying to give open beds to the sickest floor patients first before the beds show up as available to outside transfers. This is the reality of rationing we're dealing with when there are 60-70 patients who could legitimately benefit from ICU care but we only have space for 30.
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