Practical Considerations for Converting Operating Rooms and Post-anaesthesia Care Units into Intensive Care Units in the COVID-19 Pandemic – Experience from a Large Singapore Tertiary Hospital

Tan, Zihui; Phoon, Priscilla Hui Yi; Tien, Claudia Jong Chie; Katijo, Johari; Ng, Shin Yi; Goh, Meng Huat

doi:10.47102/annals-acadmedsg.2020220

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Another 51% of the articles specified the name and/or the type of health organisations they were focussed on. 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 66 All of the remaining studies did not specify a health organization of focus or concentrated on groups of respondents within health organisations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening the ICUs' human resource‐related responses to Covid‐19: A rapid review of the experience during the first year of public health emergency

Tursunbayeva

Lauro

2022

Health Planning & Management

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By drawing on macro‐categories of key human resource (HR) management interventions recommended by the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) during the Covid‐19 pandemic, this study aimed to explore whether and how Intensive Care Units (ICU) have strengthened their HRs during the first year of Covid‐19 emergency. A rapid review was conducted to provide a quick synthesis of the literature in English identified in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS), PubMed, and Scopus databases. A total of 68 articles qualified for the final analysis. The findings illustrated that health organisations were often guided by staffing ratios to estimate capacity to care, aimed to modify the scope of practice of providers, redeployed both internal and external staff to ICUs, created and adapted the Covid‐19‐specific staffing models, and implemented technological innovations to provide services to the unprecedented number of patients while protecting the physical and mental health of their staff. The insights of this research should be helpful for health leaders, HR Managers, and policymakers who have faced unprecedented challenges and tough decisions during this emergency. The findings could also inform beyond‐Covid‐19 ICU policies and guide future research.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening the ICUs' human resource‐related responses to Covid‐19: A rapid review of the experience during the first year of public health emergency

Tursunbayeva

Lauro

2022

Health Planning & Management

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“…The most intuitive approach, and first step, for a hospital is to increase the number of available beds for COVID-19 patients, both on ICUs as well as on wards. This can be achieved by using operating rooms for COVID-19 care, 19 building alternate care sites, 20 or quickly training nurses to care for COVID-19 patients. 21 Dutch hospitals are typically run with minimal capacity and personnel in order to minimize health care expenditures, which is illustrated by a relatively low number of available ICU beds (6.7 per 100,000 inhabitants) as compared to other countries, such as Germany (33.4 ICU beds per 100,000 inhabitants).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Hospital Capacity: Achievements and Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Koning¹,

Boogers

Beeres

et al. 2022

Prehosp. Disaster med.

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Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic challenged health care systems in an unprecedented way. Due to the enormous amount of hospital ward and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, regular care came to a standstill, thereby overcrowding ICUs and endangering (regular and COVID-19-related) critical care. Acute care coordination centers were set up to safely manage the influx of COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, treatments requiring ICU surveillance were postponed leading to increased waiting lists. Hypothesis: A coordination center organizing patient transfers and admissions could reduce overcrowding and optimize in-hospital capacity. Methods: The acute lack of hospital capacity urged the region West-Netherlands to form a new regional system for patient triage and transfer: the Regional Capacity and Patient Transfer Service (RCPS). By combining hospital capacity data and a new method of triage and transfer, the RCPS was able to effectively select patients for transfer to other hospitals within the region or, in close collaboration with the National Capacity and Patient Transfer Service (LCPS), transfer patients to hospitals in other regions within the Netherlands. Results: From March 2020 through December 2021 (22 months), the RCPS West-Netherlands was requested to transfer 2,434 COVID-19 patients. After adequate triage, 1,720 patients with a mean age of 62 (SD = 13) years were transferred with the help of the RCPS West-Netherlands. This concerned 1,166 ward patients (68%) and 554 ICU patients (32%). Overcrowded hospitals were relieved by transferring these patients to hospitals with higher capacity. Conclusion: The health care system in the region West-Netherlands benefitted from the RCPS for both ward and ICU occupation. Due to the coordination by the RCPS, regional ICU occupation never exceeded the maximal ICU capacity, and therefore patients in need for acute direct care could always be admitted at the ICU. The presented method can be useful in reducing the waiting lists caused by the delayed care and for coordination and transfer of patients with new variants or other infectious diseases in the future.

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“…Changes were also made to the operating theatre (OT) setup, with the most commonly cited adaptation being the use of negative pressure rooms for COVID-19 cases [30,134]. Discussions on OT air changes per hour [147,148] and adoption of high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters [175] were commonly cited as well. Managing patient transfer within and between hospitals was also an important consideration (35).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

One Year on: An Overview of Singapore’s Response to COVID-19—What We Did, How We Fared, How We Can Move Forward

Anand

Shuy

Lee³

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Background—One year has passed since the first COVID-19 case in Singapore. This scoping review commemorates Singaporean researchers that have expanded the knowledge on this novel virus. We aim to provide an overview of healthcare-related articles published in peer-reviewed journals, authored by the Singapore research community about COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic. Methods—This was reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) protocol. It included healthcare-related articles about COVID-19 published between 23 January 2020 and 22 January 2021 with a Singapore-affiliated author. MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and local journals were searched. The articles were screened independently by two reviewers. Results—The review included 504 articles. Most of the articles narrated the changes to hospital practice (210), while articles on COVID-19 pathology (94) formed most of the non-narrative papers. Publications on public health (61) and the indirect impacts to clinical outcomes (45) were other major themes explored by the research community. The remaining articles detailed the psychological impact of the pandemic (35), adaptations of medical education (30), and narratives of events (14). Conclusion—Amidst a resurgence of community cases involving variant COVID-19 strains, the resources from the research community will provide valuable guidance to navigate these uncertain times.

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Practical Considerations for Converting Operating Rooms and Post-anaesthesia Care Units into Intensive Care Units in the COVID-19 Pandemic – Experience from a Large Singapore Tertiary Hospital

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Strengthening the ICUs' human resource‐related responses to Covid‐19: A rapid review of the experience during the first year of public health emergency

Strengthening the ICUs' human resource‐related responses to Covid‐19: A rapid review of the experience during the first year of public health emergency

Managing Hospital Capacity: Achievements and Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

One Year on: An Overview of Singapore’s Response to COVID-19—What We Did, How We Fared, How We Can Move Forward

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