COVID-19 upended many things in the healthcare sector — longer wait times, fewer beds and fewer staff to name a few. Now, as the public health emergency draws to a close May 11, the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center is hoping to find a new normal — one that improves care for its patients, according to a May 10 NPR report.
The hospital lost 55 percent of its emergency department nursing staff in 2020 during the height of the pandemic and some patients visiting the emergency department experienced longer wait times than before — in one case a patient waited around 12 hours — according to NPR. Since then, Neel Vibhakar, MD, the hospital's chief medical officer, helped to roll out a plan to decrease the wait times and get patients the care they need faster — even with staffing challenges.
Two of the key strategies the hospital implemented were:
- Prioritizing vertical care. If a patient's condition allows them to stay upright rather than lying in an ER bed — or waiting for one to open to begin receiving care — can speed up the process.
- A technique called "rapid medical evaluation" also allows for some patients to receive a brief exam and sometimes even testing in the waiting room.
However, hospital staff told NPR that providing care in the waiting room is not a long-term solution. Navigating a new normal with COVID-19 now baked in as part of it is something emergency departments are still working to do. Things are improving in other areas of care and staffing. Since then, the hospital told Becker's it has boosted its ED nursing staff and now has a vacancy rate of less than 20 percent.
"We thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel about 18 months ago and as many people have said, that light at the end of the tunnel was just an oncoming train," Chirag Chaudhari, MD, chair of emergency medicine at the hospital, told NPR. "As emergency medicine workers, we consider ourselves to be the MacGyvers in the house of medicine, and we can sort of weather these challenges."
Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:37 a.m. CDT May 12 with updated information from the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center.