How full are Idaho’s hospitals? How many COVID-19 patients? Here’s where to look
Idaho hospitals are at a critical point in the pandemic, as COVID-19 cases surge leading up to the holidays.
News outlets throughout the state are tracking hospitalizations, as Idaho fights alongside other states, trying to keep enough resources and staff on hand to treat all patients who need medical care.
So when you hear that hospitals are “filling up,” what does that mean? And how is your local hospital doing?
When Statesman reporters need to check on the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on hospitals, or how many people are hospitalized, here is where we look.
How many COVID-19 patients in hospitals near you?
If you want to know how many people where you live are hospitalized, with or without COVID-19, there are several websites you can use. Some of them offer breakdowns by individual hospital. Some offer regional breakdowns, which can help illustrate the bigger picture. When hospitals start to fill up, they often rely on other hospitals in the region to take their patients.
Public health districts — for hospitalizations in your region
Idaho is broken into seven public health districts. Each one is responsible for managing the coronavirus response for several counties in their region.
They all offer varying levels of information about how COVID-19 is affecting their local hospitals. Here’s where to look, based on where you live:
Panhandle Health District — covering Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai and Shoshone counties
The health district shares its COVID-19 data at panhandlehealthdistrict.org/covid-19.
It shows the number of residents who have ever been hospitalized because of COVID-19, including those admitted to hospitals out of state, and the number of Panhandle residents who are currently hospitalized. For example, 66 people from the health district were hospitalized for COVID-19 on Nov. 23.
The health district’s COVID-19 dashboard shows how hospitalizations have changed over time, how many patients were newly admitted for COVID-19 each day, and the demographics of Panhandle residents hospitalized for the coronavirus disease.
Southwest District Health — covering Adams, Canyon, Gem, Owyhee, Payette and Washington counties
The health district shares its COVID-19 data at phd3.idaho.gov/covid19. Its data dashboard is one of the most comprehensive presentations in the state. It shows:
- weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU admissions among people in the region. (By using the “Patient County” menu on the upper left hand side of the dashboard, you can see numbers for each county in the health district.)
- hospitalizations broken down by age group.
- how long people were hospitalized.
- how many of them came from nursing homes, residential assisted living and other congregate-care facilities.
- how much of the region’s hospital patients have COVID-19.
- the number of health care workers with COVID-19 — a number that can help illustrate how much the pandemic is affecting staff levels at local hospitals and clinics.
Central District Health — covering Ada, Boise, Elmore and Valley counties
You can access the health department’s data dashboard from cdhd.idaho.gov/dac-coronavirus.php.
It shows hospitalizations by age group, number of Ada County residents hospitalized or in the ICU from COVID-19, number of ICU beds and ventilators still available, and the number of health care workers with COVID-19.
South Central Public Health District — Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Minidoka and Twin Falls counties
The health district’s data dashboard at phd5.idaho.gov/coronavirus-dashboard shows COVID-19 hospitalizations by age group.
South Central PHD’s “Regional Risk Summary” at phd5.idaho.gov/CoronaVirus shows a general summary of hospital capacity in each county. All counties in the district were in the red “Critical Risk” category as of Tuesday, with a high or critical level of burden on their hospital capacity. That was based on the local hospital’s “ability to treat all incoming patients, not just COVID -19 positive patients” and “includes available staffing, available beds, available personal protective equipment, and other factors that may impact their ability to respond to medical emergencies,” according to the health department’s summary.
Southeastern Idaho Public Health — Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Butte, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida and Power counties
The health department shares its COVID-19 data at siphidaho.org/coronavirus.php and on its dashboard, accessible from that website.
The dashboard includes the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations for each county in the region, both currently hospitalized and total hospitalized since the start of the pandemic.
It also shows a detailed case breakdown for each confirmed and probable case of COVID-19 in the region. That breakdown shows whether the person was or is currently hospitalized.
Eastern Idaho Public Health — Bonneville, Clark, Custer, Fremont, Jefferson, Lemhi, Madison and Teton counties
The health department’s data dashboard is accessible from a link at eiph.idaho.gov.
It shows the number of people hospitalized in the region currently or ever. It shows the share of hospital and ICU beds that are currently occupied.
The dashboard also offers a detailed case breakdown for every case in the region, including whether the person was hospitalized.
What about in my local hospital? How many patients are there?
A few hospitals and health systems share their numbers publicly online. Others share with media outlets. Here is where to look:
Saint Alphonsus Health System — for hospitals in the Treasure Valley, from Eastern Oregon to Boise
Saint Al’s updates its COVID-19 dashboard each day, with hospitalization numbers and testing data. The dashboard shows numbers for the entire health system, and numbers broken down by the county where hospitalized patients live — Ada, Canyon, Owyhee and Payette counties in Idaho, and Malheur County in Oregon.
For example, 75 patients with COVID-19 were in Saint Alphonsus hospitals on Sunday night. They made up 21% of the 358 patients in the system’s hospitals — the highest percentage Saint Alphonsus has ever reported.
St. Luke’s Health System — for hospitals in the Treasure Valley, Magic Valley, Blaine County and Valley County
St. Luke’s updates its COVID-19 dashboard each day on its website. The dashboard includes system-wide numbers and breakdowns for each hospital in Boise, Elmore County (Mountain Home), Jerome, Magic Valley (Twin Falls), McCall, Meridian, Nampa and Wood River (Ketchum).
For example, 36 of the 192 patients hospitalized at St. Luke’s in Downtown Boise on Monday night had COVID-19 — one of the highest shares of patients with COVID-19 for that hospital.
What do Saint Al’s and St. Luke’s dashboards show?
Both systems’ dashboards show the number of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 as of the night before, the number of adult patients hospitalized overall, and how those numbers have changed over time.
The dashboards don’t include pediatric patients (babies, children or teenagers), even if they tested positive for COVID-19.
The dashboards also do not include patients who come into the emergency room but don’t need to be admitted to the hospital overnight.
Hospitalizations for East Idaho
EastIdahoNews.com gathers information directly from eight hospitals in the eastern part of the state.
The news outlet updates its COVID-19 and hospitalization data on Tuesdays and Thursdays at eastidahonews.com/coronavirus. It shows the number of patients with COVID-19 in the hospital and in the ICU, and how many beds are occupied out of the hospital’s current capacity.
For example, on Tuesday, there were 74 patients with COVID-19 in the eight hospitals that provide data to EastIdahoNews.com. Nineteen of them were in the ICU.
Hospitalizations in the northern part of the state
Kootenai Health shares its COVID-19 patient numbers at kh.org/covid-19. It reported 58 patients with COVID-19 on Tuesday morning, including 15 who needed critical care. While it does share the number of beds in its units, it doesn’t share how many are available at any given time. However, the hospital does say that, on Nov. 6, its medical-surgical area — the main area for hospitalized patients — was 92% full. On that day, it had 13 fewer patients with COVID-19 than it did on Tuesday.
Bonner General Health in Sandpoint updates its COVID-19 patient numbers at bonnergeneral.org/covid19-coronavirus. It showed six patients hospitalized with the coronavirus disease as of Monday night.
All Idaho hospital patients and COVID-19 cases
For a statewide summary, check the “Hospitalizations” section of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare COVID-19 dashboard. (You can get to it from the state’s website, coronavirus.idaho.gov.) It is updated a few times a week, based on data the federal government collects directly from hospitals. Not all hospitals report their data every day, so numbers may not always be complete. But they’re very close.
The last time almost all hospitals in Idaho reported COVID-19 patient numbers was Nov. 18. They reported a total of 444 patients with COVID-19, with 89 in the ICU.
The dashboard includes demographics for everyone hospitalized so far with COVID-19. It shows them by age group, from under 18 (78 patients so far) to 100 and older (four patients so far).
What about hospital capacity? How do I know my hospital is truly full?
You won’t find accurate data anywhere on how many “beds” are available for patients, versus how many are taken up by the pandemic. Here’s why:
- Beds aren’t beds without health care workers to staff them. When nurses, physicians and other employees get infected, stay home to care for a sick family member or quarantine due to exposure, the “beds” they worked with cease to be available. Idaho hospitals have ways to keep those beds staffed — asking nurses to work extra shifts, hiring new respiratory therapists or bringing temporary nurses in from other places. Idaho is now competing with other hard-hit states for a limited number of those trained professionals.
- Hospitals are licensed for a certain number of beds. You can find that number in a few different places. However, it usually includes departments like behavioral health, maternity or rehabilitation. Those departments aren’t staffed or equipped to care for patients with COVID-19. The pandemic is sending a lot more patients than usual to just a few departments — the ICU, medical-surgical units and emergency rooms especially. So the number of “beds” in a hospital doesn’t tell you where the crisis points are.
- The capacity of each hospital can change daily, or even by the hour. Staff shortages can suddenly limit the number of patients a hospital can safely admit. Hospitals also have “surge plans” they can use to free up space in a pinch, or even convert entire floors to COVID-19 units — if they have enough staff to work with those patients.
The federal government has begun to ask hospitals to report on their COVID-19 situation every day. One question they’re asked is whether they have a critical staffing shortage, or whether they anticipate having one in the coming week. The information must be downloaded as a spreadsheet; it isn’t easily accessible to the public. (We will update this story if that changes.)
The data available Tuesday said that eight hospitals out of 50 in Idaho currently have a critical staffing shortage. Nine said they anticipate a critical staffing shortage in the next week.
The data also showed that Idaho hospitals in one day had admitted 57 patients with confirmed COVID-19 and 12 with suspected infections but test results pending. That included two children.
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
