Last week several hospital Chief Medical Officers wrote to the state health director urging her to implement several specific interventions to slow the tide of patients deluging Arizona’s hospitals. The memo didn’t work as the governor and health director didn’t implement any interventions last week.
This week the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association put together a template letter encouraging community leaders and hospital CEOs to circulate to elected officials in their jurisdictions.
Over the next 2 weeks we expect hospitals to delay important non-emergency surgeries. Patients will be transferred to alternate hospital sites using the ADHS’ surge line. Patients presenting in emergency departments with troubling symptoms and who would normally be admitted will be sent home. Likewise, patients will likely be discharged from hospitals earlier than normal.
Finally, when the system reaches saturation after these interventions have been implemented, we will need to operate under the Crisis Standards of Care. It means that doctors will need to triage and score critically ill patients to decide which patients to withhold care based on their likelihood of survival and life expectancy of they were to recover.
Sadly, there have been many missed opportunities to prevent or mitigate the coming crisis. Because these opportunities weren’t taken advantage of in time, we are now in the position of asking the governor and local elected officials to take immediate action in hopes that the worst of this crisis can be prevented (implementing Crisis Standards of Care).
