After Gov. Andy Beshear announced Tuesday that some hospitals in Kentucky are nearing critical capacity, some Tri-State hospitals have seen triple their inpatient numbers compared to about a month ago.
"In the past 60 days we've seen an increase of 450% in our hospitalizations just in Southwest Ohio," Tiffany Mattingly, the vice president of clinical strategies for the Health Collaborative, said. "To put that in perspective, we had maybe 80 COVID positive hospitalizations. I think we've been down to 40 at one point in July, and we will be over 300 today."
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Each morning, Mattingly is on a call with top Tri-State healthcare leaders, and they discuss the recent rapid spread of COVID-19. She said every 11 days, the number of COVID-19 cases in Hamilton County doubles.
Right now, local hospitals have room for patients, but hospitals are facing staffing shortages.
"Staffing is a significant limiting factor right now," Mattingly said. "Hospitals can find room and make room and double up on beds, but if you don't have the staffing, you don't have the staffing."
Mattingly and other healthcare leaders have not identified a point where the number of inpatients surpasses what staff members can handle, but she said they are trying to identify that point.
"Those are the types of discussions that we're starting to have and identifying. Okay, what's the breaking point?"
