EMS call volume vs ER saturation

Email 08/09/2021

Mr ______,

I saw this article on Drudge and thought I would weigh in from my perspective here in Atl EMS.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/u-s-city-with-2-4-million-population-has-just-six-icu-beds-left/ar-AAN4aaD

Our local hospital emergency rooms are certainly busy, but our overall call volume does not coincide with the numbers we're seeing in the ERs. That means the ERs are filling up with walk-in patients. Walk-in patients don't tend to be critical patients. If EMS isn't bringing in an excessive amount of critical patients, who is getting put on all the ventilators? Just a thought.

I don't know if you have a website, like this one linked below, in Texas. This is what we use here in Georgia to try to determine which hospitals can accept EMS patients. It's not perfect, but it helps. I usually just filter for my county, ______.

https://georgiarcc.org/

Have a great day,
Handy

PS: No pandemic on the street still. ERs full of people who have been told to be afraid... be very afraid.