Out-of-state patients fill hospitals
Most are transferred from COVID hot spots where facilities are overwhelmed
Hospitals in southwestern Pennsylvania have been receiving an influx of out-of-state patients with serious conditions as the latest surge of COVID- 19 overwhelms some facilities.
Allegheny Health Network, one of the region’s largest hospital systems, has seen a significant uptick in transfers in the past two weeks as health care centers in West Virginia and Ohio fill up with COVID19 patients, causing people with myriad conditions to seek care elsewhere.
“We get a fair amount of volume from both of those states on a regular basis, but there’s definitely been an uptick,” said Dr. Maggie Thieman, medical director for the AHN transfer center. “And the requests that we’re seeing from several states away is something we never really saw before” although she didn’t identify those.
Where the center usually gets about 1,500 transfer requests a month, July saw it receiving more than 1,700 — a record high for the past three years, Dr. Thieman said.
Patients with everything from heart disease, brain tumors and valve obstructions are being taken in, as well as people with severe COVID-19 who require extra care. The majority of those who have a serious case of the virus are unvaccinated, Dr. Thieman said, and
it’s very rare that a vaccinated patient comes through in a similar condition.
“From a transfer center perspective, our team has been trained for situations just like this and we’re able to keep pace with the requests” and did the transfers, Dr. Thieman said.
Each request is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said, to determine whether someone can be accommodated into AHN. And there’s no specific capacity limit for the center since the network can “ebb and flow” to help people in different ways.
COVID-19 cases have been rising nationally since the more-contagious delta variant became the predominant strain of the virus in the U.S. Daily caseloads of the virus have increased tenfold since late June, according to the New York Times, and the number of patients hospitalized with the virus is at its highest point since February.
“We — as in the Pittsburgh community and Allegheny Health Network — we are being affected by the status of COVID in communities far, far away from us,” Dr. Thieman said.
Allegheny County has a relatively high rate of vaccinations against COVID-19. According to the state Department of Health, approximately 55% of the county’s population has received a full vaccination, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say only 50% of Americans has gotten their shots.
While that doesn’t mean Allegheny County is protected from a surge, especially as daily cases have risen substantially in recent weeks, it has kept hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
On Friday, the county Health Department reported a two-day total of 400 new cases, a stark jump over totals that remained in the double digits from early to mid-July.
UPMC has also seen transfers from other facilities throughout the pandemic, but a spokesperson did not say whether there has been an uptick in recent weeks.
“UPMC has accepted transfers from non-UPMC facilities and has offered care advice throughout the pandemic,” chief medical officer Dr. Donald Yealy wrote in a statement.
“This includes crafting transfer guidelines and aiding specific requests agreed upon by the lead physicians at each health care organization across Western Pennsylvania. Hospitals across the country continue to contact UPMC for transfer possibilities and for insight. We serve all who come to UPMC to our best ability.”
Dr. Thieman said she is concerned that AHN may run out of the resources to help these patients if hospitalizations begin to rise in and around Allegheny County, even if the hospitals want to continue providing care to all patients who need it. They continue to encourage everyone to get vaccinated to prevent serious illness from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the deluge of patients coming in from outside the state shows no signs of slowing down any time soon as the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread all over the country.
“I definitely don’t see this going away or getting better anytime soon,” she said. “What I can tell you for the month of August so far is the transfer center, in terms of requests, is on pace to even exceed the record-high number of requests that we saw in July.”