Critics slam changes in ICU capacity reporting in Houston

HOUSTON (AP) — A change in how Houston area hospitals report intensive care unit capacity during the coronavirus pandemic has drawn criticism from the top two locally elected officials who are questioning if the medical facilities are being fully transparent.

But officials within the Texas Medical Center, a sprawling medical complex made up of Houston’s major hospitals, say the change was done to provide more accurate information and reassure the public that it was not running out of ICU beds.

As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise in Houston, the Texas Medical Center has been providing a daily pandemic-related update on its website, including charts on ICU capacity, when base ICU capacity could be exceeded, when sustainable surge capacity could be exceeded and other metrics from its local member hospitals.

Last week, the medical center reported that its normal ICU capacity was at 100% and warned that “ICU capacity is becoming increasingly stretched.”

Hospital leaders later held a news conference in an effort to tamp down public alarm.

Adding to the public concern, the medical center then took its charts offline for several days and when they reappeared, references to sustainable and unsustainable surge capacity and when those could be exceeded were replaced with discussion of different phases of intensive care. Many of the bright yellow and red colors used to highlight concern and warnings in some of the old charts were replaced with shades of blue.

Dr. James McDeavitt is senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, which is one of the member institutions within the medical center. He said the way the data was presented didn't provide a complete picture of ICU capacity.

“Not to minimize the...