San Diego County, Hospitals Tracking Data To Get Ahead Of Next Big Flu Emergency

Speaker 1: 00:00 It is flu season at time of year when more and more San Diego [inaudible] are getting sick and turning up in hospitals. KPBS health reporter Taryn mento tells us how medical facilities and County officials are bracing for an influx of patients ahead of a potentially severe season. Speaker 2: 00:18 The garage behind sharp Chula Vista medical center houses crucial emergency equipment, portable sinks, room dividers, and military tested tents. Senior safety management specialist, Kathy Muth says it can all be assembled in a backpack for a sudden surge of patients increase a patient's that impacts our ability to take care of our patients like a disaster major accident or an outbreak of a common infectious disease. So primarily we've used them for exercises, thankfully, but we have also used them a couple of times for during the flu season. If the hospital notices more people are coming in with flu symptoms, it can divert them to the tents to keep them from bottlenecking the system. It gives the emergency room a little bit of breathing space. The breathing space is one part of the county's capacity plan to deal with the ebb and flow of the regions urgent medical needs from an unpredictable earthquake to the annual flu season. Officials monitor real time data to spot when the healthcare system is stressed and take action to prevent it from becoming fully overwhelmed. Speaker 1: 01:24 This is a measure of how busy our hospitals are Speaker 2: 01:27 inside the county's division of emergency medical services. Senior epidemiologist Joshua Smith is monitoring transfer of care data. That's how long it takes paramedics to hand off a patient to hospital personnel. Is that minutes? Those are in minutes. Yep. It was within normal range during a recent October visit. Little over 19 right. But the busier hospitals get the more it grows. Speaker 1: 01:49 And so we're looking for a spike, a actually up above 21.33 is our, is our official level. Uh, that concerns us. Speaker 2: 01:58 The medical services medical director, dr Kristie Canuck says data points like this serve as an early warning system that hospitals are reaching their capacity Speaker 3: 02:08 because it's taking longer for the paramedics to deliver the patient to the health care staff at the hospital. It also means that it takes longer for them to be available to respond to the next nine one one call. Speaker 2: 02:22 This tells her it's time to implement actions outlined in the capacity plan to alleviate the pressure, Speaker 3: 02:27 potentially waiving requirements that I as the EMS medical director would have authority at the local level to waive for how many paramedics respond. Speaker 2: 02:39 Instead of two paramedics, maybe one is sent along with someone who has less advanced skills. The plan is designed for any sort of disaster but was developed in 1997 to help manage a flu outbreak. And the plan is improved each year, especially since 2017 when the County experienced what senior epidemiologist Smith calls flu mageddon Speaker 1: 02:58 our duty officers Speaker 2: 03:00 were, we're being bombarded with reports. It was one of the most severe seasons on record. And after it peaked, Smith looked back at nine one one call volume, transfer of care time and other metrics to identify when it started. Speaker 1: 03:13 But what we were able to do is take the data from that year and look at it retrospectively and then apply our current system of uh, using metrics and trigger points. And we realized we would have picked up the flu mageddon in about two weeks early that year and been a little more prepared this year. Speaker 2: 03:32 Flu activity is above average, but well within the medical system's capacity. That means at sharp Chula Vista, the surge temps remain in storage. In the meantime, emergency room, doctor Karar Ali says the hospital already has an internal system to mitigate any patient surge from the flu. There's a separate emergency room team to triage less severe cases. Speaker 1: 03:54 It became a, an asset, uh, an indispensable asset during the flu seasons. Speaker 2: 03:59 Instead of waiting among patients in dire situations, people with flu symptoms are diverted to the team that addresses only mid-level patients. Speaker 1: 04:06 I mean, they're in and out, you know, in a very short amount of time. Speaker 2: 04:09 Keeps patients satisfaction up, emergency staff morale high, and can help keep the County from triggering it's capacity plan. Taryn mento KPBS news.