Hospital bed surge capacity in the event of a mass-casualty incident

Traditional strategies to determine hospital bed surge capacity have relied on cross-sectional hospital census data, which underestimate the true surge capacity in the event of a mass-casualty incident.

To determine hospital bed surge capacity for the County more accurately using physician and nurse manager assessments for the disposition of all in-patients at multiple facilities.

Overnight- and day-shift nurse managers from each in-patient unit at four different hospitals were approached to make assessments for each patient as to their predicted disposition at 2, 24, and 72 hours post-event in the case of a mass-casualty incident, including transfer to a hypothetical, onsite nursing facility. Physicians at the two academic institutions also were approached for comparison. Age, gender, and admission diagnosis also were recorded for each patient.

A total of 1,741 assessments of 788 patients by 82 nurse managers and 25 physicians from the four institutions were included. Nurse managers assessed approximately one-third of all patients as dischargeable at 24 hours and approximately one-half at 72 hours; one-quarter of the patients were assessed as being transferable to a hypothetical, on-site nursing facility at both time points. Physicians were more likely than were nurse managers to send patients to such a facility or discharge them, but less likely to transfer patients out of the intensive care unit (ICU). Inter-facility variability was explained by differences in the distribution of patient diagnoses.

A large proportion of in-patients can be discharged within 24 and 72 hours in the event of a mass-casualty incident (MCI). Additional beds can be made available if an on-site nursing facility is made available. Both physicians and nurse managers should be included on the team that makes patient dispositions in the event of a MCI.