COLORADO, USA — Nearly 300,000 Coloradans live in counties with no intensive care hospital beds – a reality for vast swaths of the state that may prove to be another pressure point on a hospital system bracing for an onslaught of COVID-19 patients, a 9Wants to Know analysis of data found.
More than three dozen Colorado counties either have no hospital or none with ICU beds, according to an analysis of Colorado Hospital Association data from 2018.
That means that the most critically ill in those counties will have to be transported elsewhere to be treated.
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It’s one more reason that hospital administrators and state health officials are scrambling to prepare for a wave of COVID-19 patients expected in the coming weeks and months.
“At some point, it’s less, almost, of a concern where folks are coming from and where they’re being treated,” said Emily Johnson, a policy analyst at the Colorado Health Institute (CHI). “I mean obviously, people would always prefer to be treated, I think, a little bit closer to home. But I think it’s almost less a concern of that and I think more just a concern of, are we going to have enough beds … regardless of where they’re placed?
A 2019 analysis published by CHI showed only one Colorado county – San Miguel in the southwest corner of the state – with none of its land within a 45-minute drive of a hospital, though it’s important to note there is a full-fledged emergency room there, in Telluride.
Even so, vast sections of many rural counties are a farther drive.
That point is illustrated by the hospital association data from 2018, the most recent available.
Seventeen Colorado counties – Bent, Clear Creek, Costilla, Crowley, Custer, Dolores, Elbert, Gilpin, Hinsdale, Jackson, Mineral, Ouray, Park, Saguache, San Juan, San Miguel, and Washington – have no hospital.
A point underscored by Kevin Stansbury, the chief executive officer of the 15-bed Lincoln Community Hospital in Hugo.
“If you're leaving Denver on I-70, once you pass roughly E-470, we're the only hospital on the I-70 corridor between that point and Burlington – which is, as you know, on the Kansas line,” Stansbury said.
Another 20 counties have hospitals but no ICU beds: Archuleta, Baca, Cheyenne, Conejos, Grand, Gunnison, Huerfano, Kiowa, Kit Carson, Lake, Las Animas, Lincoln, Moffat, Phillips, Prowers, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Sedgwick, Teller, and Yuma.
Combined, those 37 counties had a population of 299,883 in 2018 – roughly 5% of the state’s population that year of 5.6 million.
“For those patients, when they do need intensive care, we will be sending them into the city,” Stansbury said.
It’s common for patients to be transferred from smaller, rural hospitals to larger institutions along the Front Range.
But COVID-19 may make that more challenging.
“Even if people weren't moving between different places, I think we would expect to see even just in Denver, for example, our demand is at-risk of outpacing our supply,” said Johnson. “If you then take into consideration that you're going to have to potentially be supporting Coloradans from all parts of the state, then that math gets even more dire.”
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Like their big-city brethren, the state’s smaller hospitals are struggling to gather enough personal protective equipment – PPE – to keep those treating patients safe.
That equipment is must-have even if a hospital is merely transferring a patient to get care somewhere else.
“One the issues and problems with that is just the lack of PPE – nationwide, not only in Colorado,” said Michelle Mills of the Colorado Rural Health Center. “And so we’re working to try to secure that PPE to allow that flexibility.”
Colorado has an estimated 1,849 ICU beds across the state.
On Monday, Colorado health officials reiterated a goal of adding 1,000 ICU beds by May – and another 5,000 by summer.
Making that a reality requires a lot more than just a bed, Johnson said.
“You can put an extra bed somewhere – but can you get an extra ventilator?" she asked. "Can you get an extra doctor to staff that bed?”
9NEWS data producer Zack Newman contributed to this report.
Contact 9NEWS reporter Kevin Vaughan with tips about this or any story: kevin.vaughan@9news.com or 303-871-1862.
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