Local hospitals struggle to overcome ER influx and over-capacity
Vermont Standard
In the midst of a nationwide healthcare worker shortage, a seasonal surge in respiratory viruses, and reduced options for Vermonters who need long-term or skilled nursing care, hospitals across the region are at or nearing capacity.
The lack of available beds has caused soaring emergency room wait times and an increase in “boarding” — the term for holding and treating admitted patients in a hospital’s emergency rooms or hallways, resulting from having no available inpatient beds.
Although the problem has intensified over the past few weeks, it’s far from new, according to Mike Del Trecco, the president and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Services. Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) says it has been hit harder than most. “It is a challenge affecting every hospital in our region,” said Dr. Colin Stack, Dartmouth Health’s director for care coordination, in a public statement, “but it is most pronounced at our region’s [academic] and tertiary care facilities, [which] is where the most complex cases and patients end up requiring care.”