Medical Xpress: How observation units and texting shortened hospital stays during COVID-19

From Medical Xpress: Amid nationwide concerns about increasing strains on hospital capacity, this was a program designed to streamline care for patients who were sick enough to require hospitalization for COVID-19 but could be safely discharged to recover at home after being initially stabilized at the hospital. The origins of the CACP could be traced to a call leaders had in November 2020, when fall was waning and case counts were waxing. David A. Asch, MD, the executive director of the Center for Health Care Innovation, recalls a discussion of a growing number of patients being admitted and discharged in the span of a few days—a labor-intensive trend that was, perhaps, not the best use of hospital resources or the right pathway for providing care to those types of patients. Asch reached out to a key trio: Austin Kilaru, MD, an assistant professor emergency physician, M. Kit Delgado, MD, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology, and Kathleen Lee, MD, who was then director of Innovation in Emergency Medicine. It took a weekend for Delgado and Kilaru to run some numbers, then Lee put it all together and presented their ideas to the leadership group. Read the full story in Medical Xpress.