Quick Read:
- Despite declining COVID-19 case counts, UW Medicine hospitals are at very high capacities.
- Average inpatient length of stay (LOS) has increased by as much as 66% since November.
- We also face a backlog of delayed care, especially from COVID-19 postponements.
- To help address these operational challenges, we are partnering with the consulting firm Guidehouse to improve inpatient progression of care and LOS at Harborview and UW Medical Center.
As we emerge from the Omicron surge and begin to chart our path forward, it’s worth taking stock of where the pandemic has left us, and how it has affected — at least in the short term — our ability to efficiently provide a full range of healthcare services to the community.
Despite declining COVID-19 case counts, UW Medicine hospitals are still full, and our daily census remains well above average. This is largely due to increases in the average length of stay, which at some of our hospitals has increased by as much as 66% since last November. There are many reasons for these increases, but often they mean patients remain in our care many days after being medically ready for discharge.
At the same time, we continue to face a backlog of delayed care, including for patients whose non-urgent surgeries and procedures were postponed during the COVID-19 surges due to bed capacity and staffing challenges.
While neither of these realities detracts from the quality of care we deliver, they do pose an ongoing challenge to our operational efficiency. For that reason, we will be identifying strategies and tactics in the coming weeks and months to help support our clinicians and staff and bolster our organization in recovering from this emergency.
One of our first steps to address the operational challenges will be to partner with the consulting firm Guidehouse to improve inpatient progression of care and length of stay at both UW Medical Center and Harborview. We have asked the firm to build on our learnings from previous engagements and to ensure that we identify and implement sustainable solutions. We look forward to keeping you posted on that progress, as well as other initiatives that may be planned.
As we continue to tackle these operational challenges, we must also continue to focus on the well-being of our staff, clinicians, trainees and students and the impact we have all felt over the past two years.
Thank you for caring for each other and for always putting our patients first.
Sincerely,
Lisa Brandenburg
President, UW Medicine Hospitals & Clinics
Vice President for Medical Affairs
University of Washington
Timothy H. Dellit, MD
Chief Medical Officer, UW Medicine
Executive Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs,
UW School of Medicine
Vice President for Medical Affairs,
University of Washington and
President, UW Physicians
Cindy Hecker
Chief Executive Officer
UW Medical Center
Sommer Kleweno Walley
Chief Executive Officer
Harborview Medical Center