Cyndi Copeland sits facing a series of screens, watching boxes switch color and flash and count down time. She is trying to coordinate a complex flow of traffic, but it is not on the streets of Augusta -- it is inside University Hospital.
The new computer system tracks in real time the status of each patient and each room.
"It's almost like a flight control center in the airport," said Marilyn Bowcutt, the vice president for patient care services at University.
It is part of the hospital's latest attempt to avoid going on diversion, when it doesn't have beds available for some patients and has to send ambulances elsewhere.
Diversion is a national problem that has groups such as the American College of Emergency Physicians decrying the overcrowding in emergency departments that can result as part of the backup.
That can have serious consequences, said Sandra Schneider, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester in New York and secretary/treasurer of the group. Her research found that elderly patients who were "boarded," or kept in the emergency room instead of being admitted because of a lack of beds, were four times as likely to end up in a nursing home.
Other studies found that those patients also are more likely to die, Dr. Schneider said.
Diversion also has an impact -- a study last year of children who were diverted from one hospital to another found their risk of death was increased.
"There's a loss of information, and there's maybe at times a critical loss of time in these patients that are being sort of moved around to places that they didn't really want to go and perhaps was not the best place for them to go," Dr. Schneider said.
The board of the Georgia Hospital Association voted last week to expand its task force on diversion from just Atlanta-area hospitals to facilities in Augusta and other cities, spokesman Kevin Bloye said.
"This is not just a metro Atlanta problem; this is a Georgia problem," he said.
Medical College of Georgia Hospital and Clinics went on diversion because of a lack of intensive care unit beds three times last week and twice more because it didn't have enough adult acute-care beds, said Sandra McVicker, the senior vice president for patient care services.
Next fiscal year, the health system's budget calls for the addition of six ICU beds and eight in short-term stay, she said. The health system is concerned about continuing to get referrals for specialty care from outlying areas, Ms. McVicker said.
"Because we have so many subspecialties and physicians here, we want to be sure that we can bring those patients in here because we can give them the appropriate care," she said.
University, which went on diversion six times each in April and May, including Saturday, is looking at using what it has more efficiently. Each room is color-coded -- those that need to be cleaned are brown -- and managers can track what is opened and what is assigned.
There are also icons that show the patient's status -- for a patient who is in radiology, the system shows the room with a little picture of an X-ray in it. That saves the nursing staff time, said Latina Hartfield, the informatics nurse analyst.
"So at a glance they can tell, 'Oh, that patient is off the floor. There is no need for me to go into that room,' " she said.
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
RISKY TACTICS
Diversion: Under this practice, a lack of beds, particularly in intensive care units, causes hospitals to send patients elsewhere. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2006 that ambulances in the U.S. are diverted at a rate of one per minute. Diversion has been shown to lead to a higher risk of death in some patients.
BOARDING: This occurs when patients who would normally be admitted to the hospital are kept in the emergency department, often for hours, because of a lack of beds. Research has shown that these patients also face a higher risk of death.
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Just a few observances. Firsy, how many vice presidents of patient care do they have? Sounds like they need to fire some of them and hire Nurses. But, I guess the Presidents pay is dependant upon how many vices he or she has. Really like the big computer dis[lay zone. Kinda makes me think it is a war room. Seriously, I would think the only beds that would require immediate access (filled by ambulances) are the ICU beds in the ICU room. Or is every patient needing IC housed in a seperate IC room with dedicated nurses for that room? This is just another example of the old saying that "nothing is too good for the taxpayer and nothing is too expensive. Come on reporters are you that bad that you can't ask questions. When they brought up the quote about children dying because they had to change hospitals it should have rung a bell in your head. I guess the job of a reporter has degraded to the point that they don't write stories and next the Vp of services will get the byline.