Emergency rooms in Virginia are experiencing an unprecedented surge in patient volumes due to a spike in illnesses after the Thanksgiving holiday, hospital officials said.
Hospitals said the increase is due to patients experiencing flu, COVID-19 and RSV. The Inova health system said it needs help to reduce wait times in emergency rooms that are operating at or over capacity, according to a release.
“Monday was the highest inpatient census that Inova has ever seen,” Inova representative Dr. Michael Homeyer said. “We exceeded 2,000 patients throughout the system.”
Inova said the community can help reduce the number of patients and wait times in several ways. Those suggestions include getting vaccinated, practicing safety measures, staying home if not feeling well and knowing where to go for medical care.
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Due to the patient surge impacting hospital-based emergency rooms, Inova said patients should consider other levels of medical care. The suggested alternative for emergencies includes freestanding emergency departments. For non-emergency, they suggest primary care doctors, Inova GoHealth Urgent Care Center and DispatchHealth, which provides urgent care at home.
“Use the emergency room when you need it, when you have chest pain, difficulty breathing, slurred speech, serious burns, bleeding that won’t stop, if you have mild flu-like symptoms, earache or other.... taking advantage of the urgent care,” D.C. Hospital Association Vice President of Policy Justin Palmer said.
Inova has tips online to help you determining which type of medical care you should seek and current emergency room wait times.
Correction (Dec. 6, 2022, 9:58 a.m.): An earlier version of Justin Palmer's quotation wasn't printed in full. He said mild flu-like symptoms can be treated at urgent care centers. This story has been updated.
