Hospital staff in Texas and Florida are spread thin, struggling to treat rising numbers of hospitalized patients as COVID-19 surges throughout both states.
Houston-based Harris Health System is mitigating shortages by temporarily closing two clinics and moving staff to their hospitals, KHOU 11 reported Aug. 3. Hospitals in North Texas asked the state for hundreds of additional staff to help their exhausted workforce.
Florida hospital staff are also overextended, with many hospitals reporting more patients than at any point during the pandemic. Coral Gables, Fla.-based Baptist Health told First Coast News that it's using "nooks and crannies" of the emergency room to treat patients, including conference rooms and break rooms.
Health systems like Harris shuttering clinics to accommodate hospital strain mirrors earlier stages of the pandemic, when ASCs like University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center's Sawgrass Surgical Center temporarily shut down in January so staff could assist hospitals.
Not all ASCs were shuttered to accommodate staffing shortages. Cleveland Clinic continued nonessential outpatient surgeries at almost all affiliated ASCs in December while still postponing nonessential inpatient surgeries.
In March 2020, ASCs accommodated hospital overcapacity through CMS' "Hospitals Without Walls" initiative, which allowed hospitals to provide inpatient care in enrolled ASCs for the duration of the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Throughout the pandemic, ASCs coordinated with hospitals to move outpatient elective surgeries to their centers when hospitals needed to focus on patients with COVID-19.
As hospitals in states like Florida and Texas become increasingly overextended and with some elective surgeries delayed, ASCs in some states again may be asked to alleviate hospital overcapacity.