[BossLady]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

Actually, you won't. It's a lousy metric. At any given time, at least 50% of the people in an ICU don't really need to be there. You are assuming everyone in ICU is critical and on a ventilator and 4 or 5 drips. That simply isn't the case. Physicians are generally reluctant to move their patients out of the ICU setting, the feeling is that they get better nursing care in the unit, more attention, better monitoring, etc. In addition, when a patient dies the day after being transferred out of ICU, the optics are real, REAL bad. As chief of staff at a community hospital of 250 beds and 20 ICU beds, I frequently had to go and review cases in the units and "suggest" to the attending physician that a patient be moved to a floor when critical cases were waiting in the ER. And even then there was a great deal of resistance. Monitoring ICU bed availability looks good on the surface, but once you know the real inner workings of a hospital, you would agree it is a lousy metric.

Maybe. I’m not going to argue with you friend. It’s a personal measure for me. I’ll keep watching it. I understand there are variables. This whole mess is full of variables. Like I said, I’ll stay safe at home and figure it out, day by day. You can do as you like.