More Beds in the ICU Needed to Fight COVID 19

Mitigating the COVID Crisis in the ER

What can be done to mitigate the COVID-19 type crisis in America\'s emergency rooms? To mitigate the COVID-19 crisis in America\'s emergency rooms, several actions can be taken. First, increasing the number of hospital beds and staffing levels can aid in managing the high demand for medical care. This can be done through the construction of temporary facilities and the recruitment of healthcare workers from outside the region (Berlinger, 2020). Second, strengthening the supply chain for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies can ensure that healthcare workers have the resources they need to safely care for patients. This can involve partnerships with private industry to increase production and distribution of essential items. Third, improving access to COVID-19 testing can help to slow the spread of the virus and reduce the number of hospitalizations. This can be done through expanding the availability of testing, reducing the time it takes to get test results, and making testing more accessible to underserved communities.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, expanding the use of telemedicine can help to reduce the number of patients seeking care in emergency rooms, as well as reducing the risk of exposure to COVID-19 for both patients and healthcare workers. This can involve providing financial incentives for patients to use telemedicine services, as well as training healthcare providers in the use of telemedicine technology (Rockwell & Gilroy, 2020).