Lawrence Memorial Hospital

This spring, Lawrence Memorial Hospital was forced to divert more than a dozen patients headed to its intensive care unit to other area hospitals.

The diversion was caused, in part, by an unexpected uptick in the number of patients at the hospital, said Janice Early, vice president of marketing and communications. It was the first time in decades the hospital was forced to turn patients away.

On Oct. 17 it happened again, Early said, though only one patient was sent to a different hospital.

Although diversions can be common for hospitals serving large metropolitan areas like Kansas City, Early said they’re quite rare in Lawrence.

“We had kind of a perfect storm of circumstances. It was an unusually busy night in the ER; we were very full in terms of available beds in terms of inpatients and there were many other hospitals on diversion,” Early said. “Literally no one who had worked here more than 30 years could remember it ever happening.”

Typically LMH tries to keep at least one of the facility’s 12 ICU beds free, Early said. However, on Oct. 17 those beds were full. So when a patient came in requiring intensive care, the patient had to be diverted to another hospital, she said.

“We have had a pretty full house. We’re running kind of a high census,” she said. “Normally our ICU does not run that full, but it definitely was Monday night (Oct. 17).”

The diversion on Oct. 17 lasted for about six hours, Early said.

Thursday, Early said the ICU had 9 of its 12 beds full, which is still a high count.

To clarify, Early noted that when LMH diverted patients to other hospitals, that does not mean the hospital’s emergency room was closed. Rather, the hospital had no more room in its ICU, which offers a much more specialized type of care.

Early said the hospital wouldn’t simply turn somebody away at the door and send that person to another hospital. In situations that required immediate care, LMH staff would work to stabilize a patient before diverting the patient to another facility.

Both diversions were unexpected and would have been very difficult to forecast, Early said. The hospital works to address the ebb and flow of its patients and it schedules staff accordingly, but sometimes patient upticks can come seemingly all at once.

In addition, the hospital has been more full than normal, Early said.

In all, the facility has about 174 licensed beds for patients, she said.

“Just because we’re licensed, we don’t necessarily staff to those levels,” she said. “I’ve been here 24 years and we’ve never had that many patients.”

The winter months are typically busiest for LMH, Early said, but this fall there has been an influx of patients with the flu and respiratory illnesses. Dealing with that fluid patient load, the hospital can often send staff home early or call additional staff in to work.

As of Thursday, LMH had a total of 115 patients, Early said — nearly twice the hospital’s average this year of 66 patients.

Although LMH doesn’t expect additional diversions in the near future, Early said these situations are difficult to predict and hospital staff will have to keep a close eye on trends in the hospital, tweaking procedures as necessary.

Lawrence Police Sgt. Amy Rhoads said she was not aware of the diversion having any impact on local law enforcement.