Aims The aim of this study is to investigate the situation and perceptions of nursing directors about emergency nursing staff deployment in designated hospitals during the pandemic of COVID‐19 in mainland China. Background The pandemic of COVID‐19 has significantly depleted health care resources, leading to increased burden of nursing care and staffing and exacerbating the crisis in health care facilities. Currently, how to effectively plan and schedule nursing staffing in the pandemic still remains unknown. Methods From 14 July 2020 to 8 September 2020, 62 nursing directors of designated hospitals in mainland China were invited to participate in a cross‐sectional online survey for their perceptions of nursing human‐resource allocation during the pandemic of COVID‐19. Results A total of 55 valid questionnaires were collected, showing that 96.36% of the hospitals had emergency nursing organizations and management systems during the pandemic, 96.36% had well‐established scheduling principles for nursing human resources and 54.55% of hospitals had human‐resource scheduling platforms. All the hospitals had trained emergency nursing staff in infection control (55, 100%), work process (51, 92.73%) and emergency skills (50, 90.91%). Most of the participants were satisfied with the nursing staffing deployments at their institutions (52, 94.55%). However, more than two thirds of them believed that their human‐resource deployment plans need further improvements (39, 70.91%). Conclusions Most of the designated hospitals investigated had established emergency nursing organizations, and management systems, and related regulations for the epidemic. However, the contents mentioned above still need to be further standardized. Implications for nursing management The surge of patients in the epidemic was considerable challenge for the emergency capacity of hospitals. In the future, we should pay more attention to the following aspects: building emergency nursing staffing platforms, increasing emergency human‐resource reserves, establishing reliable communication channels for emergency response teams, improving the rules and regulations of emergency human‐resource management, offering more training and drills for emergency‐related knowledge and skills and giving more focus on bio‐psycho‐social wellbeing of nurses.

Aim This study aims to explore nursing emergency management system under public health emergencies. Design A descriptive qualitative study. Method Semi‐structured interviews were conducted during March–November 2020 with 11 nursing emergency management administrators from 11 COVID‐19 designated hospitals and infectious disease hospitals under four administrative divisions in China, who were recruited through convenience and purposive sampling. Interviews were audio‐recorded and transcribed. Data were analysed with Braun and Clarke's inductive thematic analysis. The study adhered to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research. Results Three main themes emerged from data analysis: (1) Five core elements of nursing emergency management system: Structure, Staff, System, Setting, and Supply (5S); (2) Four phases of nursing emergency management system: Reduction, Readiness, Response and Recovery (4R); and (3) operational process of nursing emergency management system (5S*4R). The findings generated a conceptual model of a nursing emergency management system. Public Contribution This study provides a theoretical basis for nursing emergency management system for public health emergencies in the future. Nurse administrators could refer to this model to either review or develop their system and develop viable interventions to prepare for future public health emergencies.