Colorado hospitals deactivate the Combined Hospital Transfer Center

By

Patrick Jones

|

The Combined Hospital Transfer Center (CHTC), a statewide collaboration between hospitals and health systems across Colorado that was developed in 2020 and activated at two points during the COVID-19 pandemic to address rising hospitalizations and capacity challenges, was deactivated [on Tuesday]. During the recent activation for the surges of Delta and Omicron cases, the CHTC managed the transfers of more than 45,000 COVID-19 and non-COVID patients. These transfers were facilitated to maximize hospital resources across the state while ensuring timely patient care at the appropriate level.

“Throughout the pandemic, Colorado’s hospitals and health systems have worked collaboratively to tackle the many challenges our state faced, all to care for our patients and communities and to ensure that our health system wasn’t overwhelmed,” said Darlene Tad-y, MD, vice president of clinical affairs at Colorado Hospital Association. “We mourn the many Coloradans that we’ve lost during this pandemic and recognize the toll that the last two years has taken on our communities and our health care workforce. But we also must take a moment to celebrate successes like the CHTC – which has been recognized nationally as a best practice for hospital capacity management. We are incredibly grateful to the hospitals and health systems for their partnership, to the state for its support for this effort, and to Coloradans for trusting our hospitals to make these sometimes-difficult decisions in order to ensure our health system bent but didn’t break.”

This press release was provided by the Colorado Hospital Association.