TIME Magazine asked Susan Michaels-Strasser, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, ICAP’s senior director of human resources for health (HRH) development, about the need for more health care workers to care for the increased number of critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Data shows hospitals and health centers are reaching their maximum capacity, she explains. “Not only do we have more patients, we have more critically ill patients so it requires a higher level of care,” Michaels-Strasser says. “One nurse can’t take four people; they (often) have to take care of one person because it’s a life or death situation.” Neither expert recalls the U.S. taking such drastic steps in response to a previous infectious disease outbreak, although Michaels-Strasser notes that using back-up doctors and nurses in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak was “done effectively.”

Read the March 26 article on TIME.com

Read the latest ICAP updates on COVID-19 here