The COVID-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented stresses on hospital and health care systems. In this report, the authors present a list of strategies for creating critical care surge capacity and estimate the number of patients accommodated, given the number of available critical care doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, ventilators, and hospital beds. They also document the development of a user-friendly, Microsoft Excel–based tool that allows decisionmakers at all levels — hospitals, health care systems, states, regions — to estimate current critical care capacity and rapidly explore strategies for increasing it.

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       Mahshid Abir, Christopher Nelson, et al.

       Table of Contents Chapter One

       Background

       Chapter Two

       Essential Components of Critical Care Capacity

       Chapter Three

       Strategies to Create Critical Care Surge Capacity

       Chapter Four

       Assessing Critical Care Capacity Created by Various Surge Strategies

       Chapter Five

       Next Steps and Policy Recommendations

       Appendix

       Research Methods

       Research conducted by RAND Health Care

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