Wichita hospitals see increase in COVID hospitalizations, watch for holiday surge

Wichita hospitals are watching for a possible surge in the coronavirus pandemic after a slight increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the week following Christmas. Meanwhile, some outlying areas in the region are seeing improvement in hospitalizations.

“The Wichita hospitals, as we’ve seen, they continue to have a high ICU census,” said Dee Dee Dewell, an outreach representative for Ascension Via Christi, during a regional hospital teleconference on Tuesday.

“That’s both COVID and non-COVID. Our COVID-positive census, in general, is really still at a high mark. However, I would note that these numbers are not nearly as high as they were back when we really saw that spike in mid-November.”

The Sedgwick County Health Department reported on Monday that Wesley Medical Center and Ascension Via Christi were treating a combined total of 216 COVID-19 patients. They had 70 of those patients in intensive care units.

The numbers are a snapshot in time. Hospital capacity and bed availability statistics fluctuate as patients are admitted and discharged.

“I would say we (Wichita hospitals) have seen a moderate increase in new cases, probably over the past week, despite that drop in what looks like lower testing rates,” Dewell said. “Now that’s from the Wichita perspective. But in the outlying areas, some of those (hospitals) ... they’re seeing either a plateau or a decline in COVID hospitalizations.”

Dewell said Hutchinson and Reno County “have seen a notable decline in their hospitalizations.” She said Newton’s “ICU beds are still at a premium, but everything else is about the same.”

In Pratt, “It doesn’t seem to be quite as bad as it was back in November when we had our really big surge, but we have seen a slight increase over the last week,” said Whitney Rohlman, director of pharmacy at Pratt Regional Medical Center.

In Wichita, zero of the approximately 208 ICU beds were available on Monday, the county health department reported. The ICUs have been full since the start of November. The hospital status is listed as “critical.”

Tuesday’s teleconference included a south-central regional report from the Kansas Hospital Association. The reports are available online at covid.ks.gov/report-outs.

The report showed the availability of adult, staffed ICU beds in the Wichita region is about 11% — the lowest of any region in Kansas.

The region had 28 adult, staffed ICU beds available out of 256 total. Patients with COVID-19 occupied 34% of those beds and non-COVID patients occupied the other 55%.

The region’s hospitals were treating a combined 272 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, with 86 of those in ICUs.

Limited hospital capacity means patients in rural hospitals have longer waits if they need to be transferred to larger hospitals.

Dr. Richard Watson, of Cheyenne Mountain Software, assists smaller hospitals with transferring patients to larger facilities. His information showed that in Wichita, both Ascension Via Christi St. Francis and Wesley Medical Center had no capacity in floor beds or ICU beds, for either COVID patients or non-COVID patients.

“We are tight here,” he said.

“We’re seeing two separate groups. We’re seeing a group that is sicker and demanding higher levels of care that are much more difficult to place. And then we’re seeing the less sick, who are able to stay closer to home.”

This week’s hospital report was missing data from four hospitals in south-central Kansas. Wichita businessman Jon Rolph, who hosts the weekly teleconferences, said that “because of the holidays, some of the smaller hospitals had trouble getting the report-in in on time.”

The reports showed a significant drop in the percentage of hospitals anticipating staffing shortages this week. Last week, the statewide number was 38%. This week, it was 5%. The drop was apparently a product of inaccurate reporting, as Rolph said the federal reporting form had a default to “no issue.”

“We’re going to work on trying to get that more accurate here on future reports,” he said.

Is a surge coming?

Rolph said it will be important to follow hospital reports following the holiday season. He said the focus will be on ICU capacity, which is lowest in south-central Kansas.

“We’ll be watching what’s going on with our hospitals, very close to the edge right now,” Rolph said during the teleconference for the Kansas City metro, which has more ICU availability and a lower percentage of COVID patients than Wichita’s region. “And we’ll be waiting to see if we get this holiday surge. It’s beginning to look like that might be happening.”

Seth Konkel, a public health worker in south-central Kansas, pointed to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data that showed a regional increase from 3,703 new cases the week of Christmas — which was a seven-week low — to 5,382 new cases for the seven-day period that ended Monday — which was a five-week high.

“We saw that almost 45% increase, we’re definitely going the wrong direction,” Konkel said. “... We kind of expected it as families got together for the holidays. Obviously we’re seeing some of those consequences now.”

Rolph, referring to the drop in new cases reported over the holidays, said “we’re seeing this across the state, where you had that dip in testing over the holidays.” He asked Konkel how much of the dip during the December holidays and increase afterward was due to “people who would have been tested that Christmas week, but went in that week after.”

Konkel said public health officials don’t know the answer.

“I think we definitely saw a dip in demand, and thus potentially a dip in positives and positivity rates,” Konkel said. “I think that families were social distanced long enough and didn’t do Thanksgiving and didn’t do all the other holidays and finally said ‘for Christmas, dang it, we’re doing it.’ Not faulting anybody for that. My family did the same thing; we were all quarantined up until that point.”

State data did not show a statewide or regional surge after Thanksgiving, but Sedgwick County Health Department data showed a local surge in cases the week after the holiday. The local health department also reported an increase in COVID patients in ICUs about three weeks after the November holiday, though total COVID hospitalizations decreased.

“Everybody’s really going to be watching these numbers closely these next couple weeks after the holidays, see what’s going to happen,” Dewell said. “Could we get lucky and see what happened after Thanksgiving, when we didn’t see the big surge. ... I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing increases.”