Some communities have only one ICU bed available for thousands of older residents.
More than half of counties in America have no hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds, according to an interactive table published by Kaiser Health News (KHN). The searchable map shows counties with no hospitals, counties with hospitals but no ICU beds, and counties that do have ICU beds.
The dearth of ICU beds poses a particular danger for more than 7 million people who are age 60 and older, according to KHN. These older adults “face the highest risk of serious illness or death from the rapid spread of COVID-19.”
The number of ICU varies wildly, even in counties that have ICU beds, according to the KHN analysis. Some communities have only one bed available for thousands of older residents. Counties that rank in the top 10% for ICU bed count could potentially have as many as 450 older people competing for each bed.
A few findings from the analysis:
- Overall, 18 million people live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU. About a quarter of the residents in those counties are aged 60 and older.
- Nearly 11 million more Americans live in counties with no hospital. About 2.7 million of those Americans are older adults.
- Hospitals with larger numbers of ICU beds tend to cluster in higher income areas where many patients have private health insurance, according to KHN.
The analysis included a few bright spots. The United States has about 3 times as many ICU beds per capita as Italy and 10 times as many as China, according to a new report from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Both countries were ravaged by COVID-19.
Unfortunately, many experts predict that demand for those ICU beds may soon exceed the supply. Over a period of months, the country may need 1.9 million ICU beds—20 times the current supply—to treat COVID-19 patients, according to the American Hospital Association.