Hospitals are struggling to discharge patients who are residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, which have implemented strict protocols around who can enter the facilities in order to prevent COVID-19 infections among their vulnerable residents.
Many long-term care facilities are requiring that hospitalized residents test negative for COVID-19 twice before returning home, keeping some people in the hospital with the coronavirus even though they could be released.
"There are some patients who are still hospitalized, who were in that waiting period - you don't really need hospital care but they need that clearance to go back," Rae Bond, chairwoman of the area's COVID-19 Task Force, said during a news briefing on Tuesday.
Bond said the hospitals and nursing homes are working to address the issue, including potentially establishing a transitional care site where COVID-19 patients on the mend can finish recovering as they await negative test results.
Officials at Hamilton County's three acute-care hospitals - Erlanger, CHI Memorial and Parkridge - would not say how many of their current COVID-19 patients fell into this "awaiting discharge" category. However, a patient bottleneck could be contributing to Hamilton County's increased number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
COVID-19 cases in Hamilton County continue trending upward at rates higher than in previous weeks, with 47 new infections reported on Wednesday, bringing the county total to 1,988, with 938 of those recovered.
While new cases are important to tracking outbreaks, they're also dependent on testing. That's why officials say they rely on hospitalization data as a metric to gauge the pandemic's severity.
On Wednesday, there were 46 COVID-19 patients in Hamilton County hospitals. Since June 9, Hamilton County's number of COVID-19 patients has hovered between 39 and 53 patients - higher than any other point throughout the pandemic.
At the same time, the number of patients in intensive care fell from its height of 22 on June 11 to 14 on Wednesday, indicating that the COVID-19 patients who are in the hospital are less sick than before.
"If the patient has two negative COVID-19 tests, then the nursing homes will take them. If they are positive, then the only nursing homes that will take them are those that already have a positive in the facility. The accepting facility sets the rules," Erlanger spokeswoman Blaine Kelley said in an email.
CHI Memorial spokeswoman Lisa McCluskey said the hospital has "worked collaboratively with nursing homes" to care for residents in need of acute medical care.
"Nursing home facilities either are working toward or have the ability to convalesce positive patients at the facility. This capability varies by facility," McCluskey said.
A spokesman for Parkridge Health System said the hospital isn't experiencing issues related to transferring patients who have been treated with COVID-19 to long-term care facilities.
Data have shown that it's difficult to contain the coronavirus in both residents and staff of long-term care facilities, which have been hit especially hard by the pandemic.
In Georgia, 5,455 health care workers have tested positive for the coronavirus. Over 2,800 of those were employees at long-term care facilities. In Tennessee, at least 339 staff members at these facilities have tested positive for the virus, based on the latest data from the Tennessee Department of Health.
Deaths in these facilities make up more than 45% of all the 2,575 COVID-19 deaths in Georgia as of Wednesday afternoon, and deaths at long-term care facilities account for 27% of the Tennessee's 497 coronavirus-related deaths.
Contact Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com.