Today, on the day that the UK is first releasing a COVID-19 vaccine to select members of the general public (a milestone the US is expected to meet within a week) the United States federal government has made available data about hospital utilization.
Most of this information was previously accessible but only on a local basis; this helped to minimize concerns about the spread of the disease and prevented a full picture from being seen outside of federal agencies. The recent growth in hospitalizations have resulted in some areas being flooded with cases and has necessitated patients being directed to hospitals in distant counties and sometimes across state lines.
COVID-19 Reported Patient Impact and Hospital Capacity by Facility, off of the healthdata.gov website. It’s a huge file (44 M) that is full of comprehensive information that is not arranged in a user-friendly format; it’s a data dump in the form of a .csv file, which means any potential user would be well served to get a database program before trying to scan through. But it provides detailed information on every hospital in the country, and is a tool which can be used to assess how ready or overutilized specific hospitals nearby might be.
In metropolitan areas where many hospitals are available within driving distance, the information can be used to direct people to those facilities which are best equipped to handle new cases. In rural areas with few hospitals present, they can provide an early warning about potential rapid spread of the virus.
The data is to be updated every Monday, keeping the information fairly current.
