Check how full Kansas City area hospitals and ICUs are with this interactive map
.png "Data from Healthcare.gov reinforces what local hospital officials have been saying. Many hospitals in the Kansas City area are running low on open beds as COVID-19 cases surge.")
The recent influx of COVID-19 patients is straining hospitals around the Kansas City area, according to local hospital officials and data reported by HealthData.gov, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Many hospitals in the metro area are experiencing occupancy rates of 80% or more. These facilities are also experiencing staffing shortages caused by COVID-19 illnesses and a growing labor crisis in the healthcare industry.
Use the map below to check the average bed capacity of hospitals and other healthcare facilities over the past seven days.
Keep in mind that these numbers may not reflect how many beds your local hospital has available right now. That’s because bed capacity fluctuates minute by minute as patients are admitted and discharged.
Hover over each colored dot to see the facility’s name, occupancy and bed availability, both in the ICU and overall.
On Monday, Jan. 10, the University of Kansas Health System held a morning press briefing announcing a record number of COVID-19 patients. Experts believe that the highly contagious omicron variant, despite being milder than the delta variant, may be causing this rise in hospitalization numbers.
“If something is far more contagious and easily transmitted from person to person, then the number of people infected goes up [and] the number of hospitalizations goes up, even if the relative percentage of those needing hospitalization goes down,” said Dr. Angela Myers, the infectious diseases division director at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Overland Park.
Experts say that hospitalizations for COVID-19 are overwhelmingly caused by COVID-19, not by unrelated conditions.
“The reality is that the overwhelming majority of our patients who are COVID positive are here because they have COVID,” said Dr. Steven Stites, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System.
Do you have more questions about hospital capacity, the omicron variant or staying safe from COVID-19 in Kansas City? Ask our Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com or fill out the form below.
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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