Strategies, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of COVID-19 field hospitals: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES: COVID-19 has strained healthcare systems, requiring the redesign of their structure, human resource management and clinical approach. Countries have adopted implementation strategies and maximise field hospital functionality to address the issue of overflow of patients with COVID-19. This scoping review was based on the main research question, ‘What are the implementation strategies, challenges and opportunities in managing the field hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic?’, and aimed to consolidate all recent evidence on COVID-19 field hospital implementation approaches, challenges and potentialities. DESIGN: Scoping review, following the Arksey and O’Malley’s framework, and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus were searched from 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2021. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Original articles, reviews, case studies and reports written in English were included. Works without full article and articles that did not answer the research questions were excluded. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Data were extracted using a standardised data extraction form in Microsoft Excel. The findings of all included articles were synthesised narratively. RESULTS: Eighty-five records were reviewed and 25 studies were included. For the field hospital implementation strategies, ‘surge capacity’, namely space, human resource, supply and system, was discussed in addition to the preparation and workflow of other services such as pharmacy, rehabilitation, food and nutrition. The management of COVID-19 field hospitals is challenging with respect to staff and resource shortages, inability to anticipate patient load and poor communication. The opportunities and recommendations for improvement of management were also highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: The compilation of lessons learnt may help improve the future management of field hospitals, administratively and clinically.