Seattle hospital temporarily diverting some patients

UPDATE Jan. 9, 2023: As of Saturday night, Harborview Medical Center has returned to regular operations and is once again accepting patients as normal.

Original story published Jan. 6, 2023:

Harborview Medical Center has temporarily stopped accepting some patients due to excessively high patient volumes.

“Harborview Medical Center has made the difficult decision last evening, Jan. 5, to go temporarily on non-trauma medical divert. This includes triaging and diverting less seriously ill (non-trauma) patients to other area hospitals,” spokesperson Susan Gregg said via email.

Gregg said the decision will allow the hospital to maintain capacity to care for the most critically ill and for trauma patients.

Being on divert means the hospital is giving emergency services a cue to take lower-level patients to other hospitals.

This is the third time in the past six months that Harborview has decided to redirect some patients, according to Harborview's Mark Taylor.

Taylor said the decision is not taken lightly and is typically relatively rare.

No timeline has been given for how long patients will be diverted, but the situation is being reassessed regularly and staff say the hospital will return to normal operations as soon as it’s possible.

Hospitals across Washington state have been extremely full for months.

December was the busiest month on record for the Washington Medical Coordination Center, which helps transfer patients when they turn up at a hospital that can’t take them in.

The center received 662 requests for assistance, more than it received during the omicron surge in early 2022.

Hospital leaders say multiple factors are converging to stress hospital capacity, including staffing levels and difficulty discharging some patients who no longer need hospital-level care but can’t get a space in a nursing home or similar facility.

Harborview officials say they currently have more than 100 beds occupied by such patients.

Hospitals and staff unions are asking legislators to help tackle issues surrounding staffing and capacity in the upcoming state legislative session.