A new study published in the American Medical Association's
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness journal suggests that sufficient hospital capacity during a disaster can be achieved through discharging non-critical patients.
"Making hospital beds available for victims of a mass emergency may be easier than once thought," said study lead author Gabor D. Kelen M.D., professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Reverse triage, which is a system to create more inpatient hospital beds by discharging non-critical patients, can significantly increase surge capacity without a corresponding increase in resources."
Read an
abstract of the article.
