Story Created:
Aug 4, 2010 at 8:20 PM PST
Story Updated:
Aug 4, 2010 at 8:20 PM PST
Patient transfers aimed at lightening the load at County-USC Medical Center rose more than 20 percent in June, due to new resident doctors unfamiliar with the massive hospital and an increase in the number of seriously ill people, a county health official said Tuesday.
“We constantly work on patient flow,” said Carol Meyer, chief network officer for the Department of Health Services.
In June, 209 patients were moved from County-USC to the county-run Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey and private facilities. That’s a jump of nearly 23 percent from May’s total of 170 transfers.
The demand for beds “has overwhelmed Rancho,” said Supervisor Gloria Molina, and that prompted county officials to move patients to private hospitals. Rancho accepted 98 of the 209 patient transfers last month.
Meyer said there has been no increase in the number of patients seeking emergency treatment or admission to the hospital. But as new residents in medical school training programs arrive over the summer, overall staffing becomes less efficient.
“As residents become more and more familiar with the facilities, this will continue to improve,” she said.
Patients with more severe illnesses or injuries also led to increases in wait times and transfers. Meyer pointed to a higher number of patients on ventilators and longer hospital stays as evidence of this “higher acuity.''
The county’s 600-bed flagship public hospital has suffered from chronic overcrowding, at levels often considered “severe or dangerous,” since it opened.
In June, the board asked staffers to develop a contingency plan to add 150 beds to the facility. It is not clear how the county would pay for such an expansion, given that significant cuts in existing health services are expected due to cutbacks in federal and state funding.
The old 800-bed County-USC hospital — the historic entrance was featured at the beginning of the soap opera “General Hospital” — was replaced in 2008 by a $1 billion building, but with 200 fewer beds.
RSS Feeds 
