Federal data show Wis. hospitals’ high stress
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Wisconsin may be declining from their peak, but newly released federal data show many of the state’s hospitals have been under what health care experts consider “extreme stress.”
For the first time this week, as more than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized with the virus, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shared data it collects on COVID-19 patient levels at individual hospitals.
Hospitalization data has been reported since April by the Wisconsin Hospital Association, but only at statewide and regional levels.
The new federal data show that even though statewide levels have declined from their Nov. 17 peak of 2,277 inpatients to 1,535 on Wednesday afternoon, 43 of 83 hospitals with COVID-19 patients had levels during the seven days ending Dec. 3 that would
have placed them under “extreme stress.”
All but three were under at least “high stress,” according to definitions used by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Small hospitals were among those most full with COVID-19 patients, according to the HHS data:
• Beds at Reedsburg Area Medical Center, in south central Wisconsin, were 45.8% filled with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients. The hospital has 25 beds, according to the state health department’s hospital directory.
• Fort Memorial Hospital in Fort Atkinson, a 49-bed facility, was 44.7% full with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients.
The Reedsburg hospital saw an average of nine coronavirus patients per day that week, and Fort Memorial saw 11.
In facilities that saw 20 or more new coronavirus patients per day during that week, Waukesha Memorial Hospital had the highest proportion of its beds filled by COVID-19 patients, at 35%, followed by Hospital Sisters Health System St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay, at 34.3%, Aurora West Allis Medical Center, at 27.8%, and Aurora Medical Center Bay Area in Marinette, at 27.1%.
Any proportion over 20% represents “extreme stress” for a hospital, according to the IHME framework. “High stress” is 10%-19%.
That stress comes as hospital administrators worry they’ll see a rise in patients infected around the Thanksgiving holiday.
“We’ve been at this for so long now,” said Ken Nelson, chief nursing officer of Green Bay’s HSHS hospitals. “We’ve been asking people for months and months to take extra shifts, come in on their days off, stay extra hours after their shift. It’s been stressful.”
They’d planned for HSHS St. Mary’s to hold all of the system’s area COVID-19 inpatients, because the facility had the most room for expanded pop-up units, Nelson said. But as the surge continued, they were forced to also treat patients at HSHS St. Vincent.
It may not seem like a lot to have fewer than half your beds filled with COVID-19 patients, Nelson said, but the extra care these patients need, especially those who are severely ill, adds “a lot of time and stress.”
Getting a patient to lie prone, for example — flipping them onto their stomach to increase the volume of air in their lungs — doesn’t sound too complicated, but when the person is hooked up to IV tubes and a ventilator, the job can take five people.
Wisconsin’s intensive care units, too, faced what experts say are challenging levels of COVID-19 patients. Of 34 reporting ICU levels to HHS, two had what IHME considers “extreme stress” — more than 60% of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients — and 21 had “high stress” — 30%-59%.
• At UnityPoint Health-Meriter in Madison, the ICU was 69% full with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients.
• Mayo Clinic Health System’s Eau Claire hospital ICU was 61.1% full with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients.
• The ICU at HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay was 59.5% full with such patients.
Madison hospitals have more than tripled their initial spring peak of COVID-19 patients, said UnityPoint spokeswoman Leah Huibregtse. They’ve brought in agency workers to boost staffing levels in nursing and lab services, she said.
“(Our teams) are doing amazing work, but they are tired,” Huibregtse said in an email.
Ten of the state’s hospitals were treating at least 50 COVID-19 patients per day, led by Milwaukee’s Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center (207) and Froedtert Hospital (118).
The following hospitals had the highest proportions of total inpatient beds full with patients of any type:
• St. Croix Regional Medical Center, at 98.5%
• Waukesha Memorial Hospital, at 92.2%
• Gundersen Tri-County Hospital and Clinics in Whitehall, at 92.1%
“It is not normally this high,” said Mellissa Solin, director of marketing and communications at St. Croix Regional Medical Center.
The hospital is starting to see a post-Thanksgiving spike, said Solin, who urged the community to remember that when they’re that full, it could mean a long drive to a different hospital for people who have been in car crashes or have other issues unrelated to COVID-19.
Hospitals with the fullest adult ICUs in Wisconsin were:
• SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, at 97.2%
• UnityPoint Health-Meriter in Madison, at 97%
• Aurora Medical Center in Oshkosh, at 95%