Portland-area hospitals on Friday said they have switched to crisis care standards, allowing them to stretch resources as the “tripledemic” of RSV, influenza and COVID-19 continues to strain the health care system.

The emergency standards, which some hospitals switched to for their pediatric units weeks ago, allow hospitals to assign more patients to staff members than normal and, in a worst-case scenario health officials hope to avoid, decide who gets care and who doesn’t.

The shift was not unexpected. Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday announced an expanded declaration of emergency that applies not only to pediatric beds but also to adult beds.

Included in a joint announcement signaling the change were Providence, Oregon Health & Science University, Legacy Health and Kaiser Permanente.

“Declaring crisis standards of care gives hospitals the flexibility to be nimble and maximize resources,” the hospitals said. “This is what will ensure community access and save lives, not just patients in Portland-metro area, but the patients in our small and rural communities needing transfer.”

The switch includes 10 campuses, stretching as far as Legacy’s hospitals in Silverton and including OHSU’s affiliate campuses Adventist Health and Tuality Healthcare, according to a list provided by the Oregon Health Authority.

“We recognize and have planned for the possibility that patients could overwhelm Oregon hospitals, forcing decisions about available resources for care,” the four hospital systems said. “At this time, we are not making triage decisions, but we are entering crisis standards of care in order to optimize all resources, including bed capacity and staffing.”

— Fedor Zarkhin