Assessing Operating Room Preparedness for COVID-19 Patients Through In Situ Simulations

Aerosol boxes and barrier enclosures for airway management in COVID-19 patients: a scoping review and narrative synthesis

“…There is a growing interest in and enthusiastic dissemination 58,86 of barriers, such as aerosol boxes, additional covers, and other creative solutions. 87 However, until these modalities show clear advantages and safety after undergoing adequate levels of scrutiny and testing in laboratory examination, simulation, 88,89 and a practical demonstration in low-risk patient care scenarios, the authors strongly advise to resist their use in hazardous patient care situations. In the absence of this evidence, the opinion of this expert panel is that 'aerosol boxes' increase task loading and complexity; add additional barriers to effective airway management; may become reservoirs for contact transmission; may damage or compromise PPE; and, fundamentally, do not stop aerosols.…”

Roadmap for Restarting Elective Surgery During/After COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Many patients have approached their surgeons to utilize the lockdown period for their surgery. Surgeons can surely utilize this waiting period in planning/preparing from the sideline in keeping up to date with many online education initiatives and simulation training for preparedness [48,49]. They have to be vigilant and keep track of rapidly emerging evidence, and frequent revisions of guidelines.…”

Data and debriefing observations on healthcare simulation to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic

“… Immersive healthcare simulation employing anticipated clinical encounters may be useful to test COVID-19 [ 8 , 10 , 11 ] and other airborne contagious disease hospital protocols, developed with limited clinical experience, to detect shortcoming before such gaps become apparent in clinical care and threaten patient or provider safety [12] , [13] , [14] . Our report is geared towards other simulation professionals[ 6 , 15 , 16 ], especially in anesthesiology [17] , critical care, and perioperative medicine, who want to leverage immersive simulation to vet their airborne precaution care protocols before the arrival of an epidemic.…”

“… Our report is geared towards other simulation professionals[ 6 , 15 , 16 ], especially in anesthesiology [17] , critical care, and perioperative medicine, who want to leverage immersive simulation to vet their airborne precaution care protocols before the arrival of an epidemic. [12] , [13] , [14] The purpose of our detailed simulation protocols ( Table 2 ) is allow replication of typical airborne contagious disease simulation scenarios and the summary of the emergent themes and key learning points allow others to anticipate, contrast, and triangulate simulation debriefings with participants. Given the limited recent experience of healthcare providers in industrialized countries with airborne contagious disease, simulation fill a void not only to train providers in anticipated scenarios, but to test protocols developed in table top exercises without prior clinical exposure, and to augment the organizational response, by improving interdisciplinary coordination[ 13 , 14 , 18 ].…”