COLUMBUS, Ohio — According to OhioHealth, Grant Medical Center has entered what’s called a “crisis bedding” situation due to a record number of trauma patients and an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients.
“Crisis bedding” is when the hospital changes its workflow in the emergency department. The goal according to OhioHealth is to, “increase the speed at which patients are triaged, reduce the number of patients in the lobby, decrease ED wait times and utilize all available ED beds.”
According to OhioHealth, there are two changes: “registered nurses in the ED may need to flex to take care of additional ED patients with support from LPNs” and some role responsibilities are redefined to speed patient triage.
Just last week 10TV interviewed the director of the hospital’s trauma center who said since the pandemic began the number of gunshot wound patients is up 70% and it’s the highest volume the hospital has seen in its history.
According to a statement to 10TV Monday from OhioHealth:
“Grant Medical Center has treated a record number of trauma patients this summer, is experiencing high emergency department utilization and is also treating a large number of COVID-19 patients due to the current surge. In response, we have made a number of operational changes including changing pre-COVID workflows, pausing elective surgeries that require an overnight stay, and redeploying staff to enable us to increase capacity and care for a growing number of patients.”
In late August OhioHealth announced it would pause some elective surgeries due to the increase in COVID-19 patients and the need to increase hospital bed capacity.