A pediatric capacity crisis developed across the country in the Fall and Winter of 2022 due to a combination of factors, including a surge in respiratory viruses, staffing shortages, and historical closures of inpatient pediatric units. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated surge in critically ill adult patients demonstrated that health care systems and health care workers can quickly implement creative and collaborative system-wide solutions to deliver the best care possible during a capacity crisis. Similar solutions are needed to respond to future surges in pediatric volume and to maintain a high standard of care during such a surge. This paper aims to build upon insights from the COVID-19 and H1N1 pandemic responses and the 2022 pediatric capacity crisis. We provide specific recommendations addressing governmental/policy, hospital/health care system, and individual clinician strategies that can be implemented to manage future surges in pediatric patient volume.
Keywords: capacity crisis; health care systems; pediatrics; policy.
© 2024 The Authors. JACEP Open published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American College of Emergency Physicians.