Hospital routing, hospitals in crisis, empty hospitals, whole hospital systems facing collapse. A short thread.
There are currently lots of seemingly conflicting news items about hospitals like the ones above. The dissonance is a sign of an information cascade.
There are currently lots of seemingly conflicting news items about hospitals like the ones above. The dissonance is a sign of an information cascade.
Finding the right balance between patient needs: give sick patients the best care available quickly, and hospital needs: have all resources in place to provide this care, is the ultimate determining factor in a successful response to Corona.
It's what I look at first.
It's what I look at first.
The shorthand for this is "hospital routing": the many complex decisions, in the government and on the ground in the hospitals, about which patients to admit, and which patients to send into home quarantine.
No country will be able to handle this perfectly.
No country will be able to handle this perfectly.
Almost everywhere in the world we are in the final stage of the epidemic cycle, the "death spike". Countries who went into lockdown unprepared and have no climbdown plan will likely see a second spike, esp if they don't mandate masks.
Unpreparedness tends to be universal.
Unpreparedness tends to be universal.
Yes, we should be seeing "empty" hospitals during this stage. Hospitals have postponed other "non-essential" procedures in order to have available beds for Corona patients. In many locations, these are no longer arriving.
And yes, we should still see some overcrowded hospitals.
And yes, we should still see some overcrowded hospitals.
This is the result of the Forrester shock Corona has sent thru the global economy: the collapse of the balancing process we usually barely notice called supply chain. This supply chain affects hospital resources too.
And unsurprisingly, the healthcare system is out of balance.
And unsurprisingly, the healthcare system is out of balance.
One problem about information cascades during Forrester shocks is that fundamental questions of "what, where, when" (the key questions of supply chain) become extremely important while the actual information on the ground tends to be out of place and out of time.
This is why it becomes important to contexualize all information: give it its right place, time, and sequence. When you pick up a news item, ask yourself the question if information is anecdotal, poorly aggregated, or outdated.
This is especially important for info on hospitals.
This is especially important for info on hospitals.
So this apparent disconnect is not a disconnect. It is a sign of a world out of balance, and world where information is outdated by the time it reaches the recipient, a world where almost every supply or demand is out of kilter.
Where market mechanism won't lead to equilibrium.
Where market mechanism won't lead to equilibrium.
This Forrester world is what this account is about, and this world is what I've described in detail since this initial tweet almost two months ago.
@threadreaderapp unroll plz!
@threadreaderapp unroll plz!
@threadreaderapp unroll plz
