SALT LAKE CITY – Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health leaders in Utah have made it clear that the key number that guides decisions is the hospital’s capacity, especially when it comes to precious beds for intensive care units.
What is confusing is the focus on the word “bed”, because that is not really the proper way to judge capacity. There are three illuminating distinctions:
- It’s about PERSONAL beds.
- It is even more about staffed adult beds.
- And it’s even more about beds for PERSONAL ADULTS in REFERRAL hospitals.
The first is obvious, as a bed without nurses and doctors does not do much.
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Utah hospitals, according to data updated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services in late December, have 1,036 ICU beds, but only sixty of those beds are occupied.
However, this is not a staffing scandal. The space for extra beds is mainly in the newer hospitals built by Intermountain Health Care: Intermountain Medical Center, McKay Dee Hospital, Utah Valley Hospital and Dixie Regional Medical Center.
When you build new hospitals, you build for decades to come, when the population is larger and more space is needed.
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Why specifically point out the need for adult beds? Fortunately, COVID-19 did not send many children from Utah to intensive care, so the beds available at the Children’s Primary Hospital are not a crucial part of the COVID equation.
Utah has 623 adult ICU beds with staff.
But that last distinction is also important. Referral hospitals are large institutions with many specialists. They are the places where you send the most serious patients who need care beyond the resources of small community hospitals.
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The Utah Department of Health considers 453 ICU beds to be the coveted adult beds staffed in referral hospitals.
The state will be in serious trouble when these hospitals reach their maximum capacity, and that is the danger that we are all trying to avoid with masks and social distance and, eventually, vaccines.