O2: Each day of reduction in ICU length of stay increases ICU patient throughput by up to 15%
For each day of reduction in ICU length of stay enabled through a COVID-19 treatment, the ICU can serve nearly 15% more patients at average COVID-19 daily arrival rates of 30 to 100. This increase ranges between 9 and 24% across length-of-stay, single-day reductions, but with no clear pattern over increasing number of days. This analysis can be used to quantify the potential benefits of Remdesivir, for example. This treatment typically reduces the length of stay for critical COVID-19 patients in the ICU by 4 days. This reduction in length of stay enables up to double the throughput at a 100 COVID-19 average daily arrival rate.
The base hospital redesigned for COVID-19 model replicated a typical US urban 200-bed tertiary hospital with the following differences:
- 20 ICU beds shared between COVID-19 Patient Handling is similar to the Base hospital, but with the following changes:
- 25 critical decision unit (CDU) beds
- 70 isolation rooms (taking 50 of the internal general ward (IGW) beds)
- Separate COVID-19 entry
- 20 Emergency department (ED) beds
- 10% COVID-19 patients to ICU with average base case of 9-day stay in ICU (2.8 realized average ICU stay for routine patients)
- ICU mortality 40% for COVID-19 patients, all assumed to receive length-of-stay reducing treatment
The base hospital for routine conditions model replicated the same typical US urban 200-bed tertiary hospital but with:
- 20 ICU beds for routine patients
- No CDU or isolation beds
- No COVID-19 entry
- 200 internal general ward (IGW) beds
- 40 ED beds
COVID-19 Care Paths & Assumptions (pdf)