Emergency physician Dr. Beau Briese says his hospital's ICU is at 88% capacity, well below the usual 97%, and surge capacity could double within hours if needed. Current COVID cases are less severe than earlier peaks, with only 13% of diagnosed cases requiring hospitalization.
We have more ICU beds today than we did yesterday. We're at 88% capacity filled in our current configuration. Normally we run at 97% in most years. We've actually been low this year, most of the year, because we've had so much less volume in the hospitals. And versus our surge capacity plan, we're only running at about a little, a little more than 50% of our surge capacity plan. Which we can implement within hours to increase our capacity in the ICUs. So we have— So that's interesting.
I was always wondering about that, Doctor. The— you, you can under emergency conditions increase ICU capacity.
Yes. If you have the equipment and personnel reserved and able to swap what they're doing, you can do so as well as the space. And we've had, you It was, it was tight in March and April to do such a thing. But, but we've been prepared. I mean, this is our job, right? You're supposed to be able to trust us to be able to get the resources and organization together to manage situations that arise like this. And we have the flexible capacity to do so.
The people coming in— we are— I keep reading more hospitalizations than ever, double the number of hospitalizations. How long is someone on average hospitalized with COVID So there's, there's kind of—
I think the best way to look at it is that there are two groups of people coming in that are getting hospitalized. There, there are people that are going to do well and they're going to survive the illness, but they, they need oxygen at home because their oxygen levels drop, and otherwise they're okay. And so they'll come into the hospital for maybe a day, get set up with home health oxygen, and then they go home with oxygen, and then they survive the worst part of their illness and don't have to be hospitalized again. And then there are people that are in the hospital for a week to 2.5 weeks, generally more like week, week and a half, and those are a different cohort of people with more comorbidities that are more ill that are heading toward the ICU.
And so compared to the worst in, I don't know, March, April, how does it look now?
Oh, it's much better. So I mean, so we're seeing a big surge in cases, but the cases that are, that are coming through are much less ill. Only about in the area that I'm in, only about 13% of the cases that are being diagnosed are requiring any hospitalization. And the vast majority of people that come into the hospital, that I see in the emergency department, are people that I send home because they are so— they just have symptoms that need a few medications to feel better and they're able to go back. So most ER visits do not result in an All right, do me a favor, please hold on.
Gotta take a break, and I am speaking to Dr. Beau Brees, emergency room physician at— in Houston.
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