I have set up a web-based form to track the important information. The form will ask about 4 types of patients: confirmed H1N1, likely H1N1 not yet confirmed, seasonal influenza, and post-influenza pneumonia. We will assess how many of these sorts of patients are in our ICUs and how many of them are ventilated. We would like to collect this information weekly, by 5 PM Wednesday for the next 8 or 10 months, or until the epidemic has ultimately dissipated. The information will be shared with state and county epidemiologists on a hospital by hospital basis, and published on our web site by region or county. As of now, we have not planned to track deaths, but that is possible, if collaborative members desire it.
My plan is to send reminder emails every week, to collate what comes in by Wednesday, and to have current information posted by Thursday of every week on the mwcritcare web site. The reporting form is live now, and we are ready to rock and roll. Follow the links on the web site (www.mwcritcare.org) to find the active form.
It may be that government officials are coming by this information in another way, but it seems to me that having the info available at least helps us to achieve our goal of helping one another to reach the highest possible quality of critical care for our patients. In this case, if some of the more dire predictions come to fruition, the highest achievable quality could literally mean that more midwesterners survive, because we help each other.
The survey form doesn't ask for a lot of information, and it should be easily completed by almost anyone. Member hospitals may want to ask one person to do it every week. If we get surveys from more than one person at any hospital, we'll probably send emails to the individuals to determine which data to use (unless they are identical). The first questions in the survey ask about numbers of ICU beds and numbers of ventilators in your hospital. Those likely will not change a lot over time.
If you receive my periodic emails, then your hospital is included. Please consider getting together with your colleagues to provide the information every week. Some of you monitor ICU beds at other hospitals; please consider either providing their information or working with people in those hospitals to get them plugged in to the collaborative and providing their own information. If you have colleagues at hospitals that you don't see listed on the mwcritcare web site, please ask them to get involved.
The data collection form is at our web site, www.mwcritcare.org. Look for page links at the bottom of the home page and follow the H1N1 link. If anyone has questions, post them to this blog or contact me at sqsimpson@mwcritcare.org.
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