HealthIT Answers March 6, 2020
By Robert Kowalik, Practice Director, IoT Solutions, HID Global
U.S. hospitals are straining under the weight of an influenza season that hit hard and fast, with the Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) estimating at least 280,000 flu hospitalizations out of a minimum of 29 million flu illnesses between Oct. 11, 2019 and Feb. 15, 2020. Now, they’re bracing for a potential pandemic in the form of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has made landfall in the U.S. with the number of confirmed cases climbing.
It’s a one-two punch that can quickly overwhelm emergency departments (ED) and inpatient resources of hospitals that lack optimized patient flow strategies.
Even without the added burden of a patient surge brought on by a...