We Need More ICU Beds To Fight COVID-19. These Medical Architects Say That Requires Hospitals To Rethink Individualized Care – Forbes

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Coronavirus Frontlines is a special series where we are sharing the perspective of experts at the forefront of combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

For years, Americas healthcare industry has operated from an abundance mentality, with hospitals assuming access to virtually unlimited resources. But we are just a month into the United States COVID-19 crisis and hospitals across every corner of America are finding themselves in the midst of a threefold lack of resources of appropriate space, of healthcare workers needed to address the crisis, and the necessary level of personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep frontline staff and patients safe.

A recent study from Harvard University shows that even in a moderate outbreak of coronavirus, 40% of markets around the country will lack necessary beds to adequately treat patients. In cities like New York and New Orleans, healthcare providers are already experiencing these challenges. Governor Andrew Cuomo is currently pushing for hospitals to develop a plan to increase bed inventory by 50 to 100 percent before the virus peaks in mid-April. But time is running out for healthcare organizations that are already finding themselves in the eye of the storm.

Though the outlook feels bleak, the current pandemic is a chance for the healthcare industry to reevaluate deeply held beliefs around patient care and comfort. Most notably, the primacy of private patient rooms and specialized nursing units as across the board solutions. Both healthcare professionals and the general public need to forego the ideal patient experience as a primary focus for the American healthcare system. Instead, it is imperative that they move to an emphasis on patient safety and survival.

It sounds like a paradox in the midst of an infectious outbreak, but augmenting single-patient rooms with prefabricated, open ward-style treatment spaces ensures we can rapidly scale the number of beds in our country. While some hospitals at the forefront of the crisis are beginning to adopt versions of this model, the scale of this crisis requires solutions that are more integrated, faster to build, and easier to deploy across geographies.

One solution is pre-fabricated ICU units: a process that builds the components offsite to allow easy assembly onsite, saving time and money. Developed recently for use in future hospitals on the East Coast, these ICU units can be integrated into unorthodox and temporary treatment areas inside hospitals like cafeterias, clinics, conference centers, and parking structures. It can also be used beyond the hospital in civic spaces like arenas, schools and community centers.

A temporary hospital is under construction in the Argentine Football Club in Lanus, Argentina.

Hospitals can arrange these temporary units in modules of 12 to 18 beds that come pre-fitted with essential ICU functions like regulated gasses, air and data. Grouping beds into larger modules maximizes caregiver sight-lines and allows nurses to oversee a greater number of infected patients in a smaller area, minimizing the staff required to care for patients. These groupings also have the potential to extend the average length of use for some PPE by reducing the need for staff to don and doff protective equipment repeatedly, as they do in typical nursing units each time they enter and exit private patient rooms.

Specialized medical equipment manufacturers have been developing and producing key elements found within the plug and play solution for years as a part of the nations hospital building boom. By marrying the two together the plug and play ICU unit and redirecting existing units intended for construction projects we may be able to help quickly offset some of the stress on todays hospital systems.

Now we must shift that energy to respond to the crisis today. Doing so means that, at least temporarily, we must focus less on the individualized and specialized care model that has been a hallmark of American healthcare, and more on the infrastructure and solutions that will save the most lives.

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We Need More ICU Beds To Fight COVID-19. These Medical Architects Say That Requires Hospitals To Rethink Individualized Care - Forbes