Amid COVID-19 surge, MedStar has moved patients from a crowded Fort Worth hospital
MedStar has deployed a long-planned, worst-case scenario response strategy amid rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations across North Texas, prepared to move patients out of busier urban hospitals to less crowded facilities elsewhere.
This week, ambulances have so far moved five patients from a facility in downtown Fort Worth to an outlying facility, according to MedStar spokesman Matt Zavadsky. MedStar worked with regional hospital systems back in May, he said, to prepare a “surge strategy” for what would happen if coronavirus hospitalizations reached a point where some patients might need to be moved. They coordinated how patients would be redistributed among facilities, and under what circumstances.
They readied for a possible “tsunami of COVID patients,” Zavadsky said. It never came — but it might be now.
“The current trajectory is such that now we may be seeing sort of that tsunami as part of what most people are referring to now as the second wave,” Zavadsky said over the phone Wednesday morning.
As Dallas and Tarrant counties have been setting new records for daily coronavirus cases, there are 88 ICU available beds left between the two counties, public health data shows — 52 in Dallas County and 36 in Tarrant County.
In Tarrant County, officials on Monday reported a record-high of 740 COVID-19 hospitalizations, breaking the record of 731 set on July 23. About 20 percent of the more than 4,000 occupied hospital beds in the county currently belong to 794 COVID patients, data showed Wednesday. That again matches a mark set back on July 23.
Zavadsky pointed out the most recent 7-day average of daily hospitalizations in the county — a rolling metric the health department has been keeping for months — is also at its highest level ever.
MedStar officials were going to attend a virtual meeting on Wednesday afternoon with members of the North Texas Regional Trauma Advisory Council to discuss the strategy moving forward. Doctors and providers will dust off the plans from April and May, he said, asking if anything has changed and what moving patients of out busier facilities would look like.
“A week from now, we may be doing it,” he said. “Like they’re doing in El Paso.”
The COVID situation in El Paso has attracted national attention as it has set grim milestones in the past few weeks, having to bring in mobile morgues for bodies of coronavirus victims. Hospitals have also had to move patients, including some who have come to North Texas facilities.
While hoping the region’s hospitals can stay below capacity, MedStar is continuing to prepare for the worst, with numbers indicating it may be approaching. In November, MedStar responded to an average of 65 calls per day in which the medics felt the person was suffering from COVID symptoms — more than the average of 63 in July.
On Nov. 10, there were 76 of these calls, according to the data provided by Zavadsky. There were 88 on Tuesday, one week later.
As part of the surge strategy, he said, MedStar is not sending COVID patients to hospitals if they have symptoms but are otherwise stable. This has been in effect since March.
Another part of the surge strategy, which has started this week, is moving patients out of crowded hospitals if necessary, Zavadsky said. If a facility has no ICU beds, he said, MedStar can move a few of those patients to hospitals miles away, freeing up beds.
“That could either be within the Fort Worth side of the metroplex, it could be across the metroplex,” he said. “It could be across all of North Texas or beyond, depending on how bad the needs are in the local community.”
Zavadsky noted that though some hospitalized patients could be moved, people who need a MedStar ambulance will never be turned away from a hospital. It’s part of a “no diversion” agreement MedStar has had with the regional hospitals it serves, he said.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 3:41 PM.
