Health systems working to calculate their resource needs before a surge in COVID-19 can now avail themselves of a surge planning tool released by UCLA Health. The tool projects the numbers of inpatient beds, ICU beds and ventilators needed over a two-week period when predictions are highly accurate. “Our approach models the rate of change in the number of COVID-19 patients in the community, as well as the resources used by these patients as a function of their demographic characteristics,” said one of the tool’s developers. “This results in accurate predictions of resource usage that can be adapted by hospitals in different parts of the country.” (Healthcare Purchasing News article, 9/9/20)
