Sunday, 14 February 2021 (YJC)_ Hospitals around the US say their supplies of crucial personal protective equipment.
Hospitals around the country say their supplies of crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies are lower than ever as demand for different data-x-items has soared to an all-time high.
Data detailing usage rates of PPE and other supplies analyzed by Premier, a company that consults for health care systems, revealed that usage of supplies for COVID-19 testing and treatment has reached the highest rate seen since the pandemic began last year.
The data, gathered between May 2020 through January 2021, was supplied by 50 health care systems across the nation that are representative of the company's larger population of clients.
PPE shortages first emerged last March, with officials in several states warning that they did not have enough supplies to adequately protect health care workers from being infected themselves.
Among the data-x-items seeing the highest demand as a result of surging COVID-19 hospitalizations through January include sterile water, which is used in many injections including the Remdesivir treatment former President Trump received as part of his COVID-19 treatment regimen at Walter Reed Medical Center last year.
Usage of sterile water is up 350 percent from rates seen last May, according to Premier's data, and hospital inventories have dropped an average of 50 percent.
Pipette tips and micro pipettes, used during the COVID-19 laboratory testing process, are also seeing higher demand than last year. Usage of pipette tips spiked to a more than 100 percent increase over last May during the holiday season in November and December before falling slightly in January, though it still remains at a far higher rate than hospitals reported early last year.
Hospital systems are also reporting these supplies much harder to find as of January, with the average delivery time for pipette tip orders jumping from a few days to nearly a month.
Some shortages were the result of the medical equivalent of the wave of panic-buying that swept U.S. stores early last year as the first lockdown measures were announced by various states, Premier's data found.
The challenges faced by hospitals trying to acquire necessary supplies for COVID-19 testing and treatment extends to the efforts of states around the country to administer COVID-19 vaccines as well.
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