October 13, 2020

Inter-Region Transfers for Pandemic Surges

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Modeling and Prediction

Keywords (Tags): health care setting

• A modeling study evaluating potential hospital bed shortages during COVID-19 surges found that inter-region transfers could alleviate regional bed shortfalls. In the worst-case scenarios in the study, national bed shortfalls ranged from 669 to 58,562 inpatient beds and 3,208 to 31,190 ICU beds. Average transfer distances that would be required to address these shortfalls ranged from 23 to 352 miles for inpatient and 28 to 423 miles for ICU patients, depending on volume. Under all worst-case scenarios except the highest-volume ICU scenario, the model found that inter-regional transfers could resolve bed shortfalls, with an average transfer distance from 24 to 405 miles for inpatients and 73 to 476 miles for ICU patients.

Michelson et al. (Oct 10, 2020). Inter-Region Transfers for Pandemic Surges. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1549