NOTE: This tracker was archived June 2022 and has not been recently updated.
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The advent of the COVID-19 Omicron variant on top of the Delta variant has led to a new surge in hospitalizations. As a result, a growing number of hospitals are likely to experience significant workforce strain over the next 30 days, according to the County Hospital Workforce Estimator developed by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity (Mullan Institute) at the George Washington University in collaboration with Premier Inc. and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO).
The Mullan Institute estimates that between now and May 18, 2022, 5.50% of counties will experience hospital workforce staffing strains due to COVID-19 hospitalizations. Using new county-level projections of COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU occupancy provided by Premier, we estimate 149 counties will need to implement crisis workforce strategies due to intensivist to ICU patient counts of 24 or greater. This involves tiered staffing strategies that integrate non ICU trained personnel to provide critical care services in what is sometimes referred to as “battlefield promotions”. Additionally, 24 counties will need contingency workforce strategies, such as higher patient counts per team, float pools, and overtime due to high COVID-19 hospital occupancy. Some counties in the contingency group may also need to adopt crisis staffing strategies due to pre-existing workforce constraints.
We also identified 2,244 counties that are expected to be able to maintain conventional workforce strategies due to lower than 6% COVID-19 hospital occupancy, though contingency workforce strategies may be required due to pre-existing workforce constraints. An additional 729 counties either did not have a hospital or did not have enough data to assess potential COVID-19 related workforce strain.
Users can select a county to view the peak county-level projected COVID-19 hospitalizations and COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) bed counts are estimated to occur in the next 30 days, the estimated number of available intensivists (critical care physician specialists) in the county, and how that translates to the number of intensivists available per 12-hour shift. This information is used to estimate the ICU patient to intensivist ratio and the percent COVID-19 hospital occupancy for the county.