Emergency Department Changes to Combat COVID-19 in Oman

Our hospital is one of the tertiary care hospitals in Oman receiving coronavirus disease (COVID-19; C19) patients. To meet the expected surge of patients, a number of changes was made to the emergency department (ED), especially regarding capacity building and patient flow. At first, few changes were made to the main ED, which mainly includes the addition of a COVID suspect room with the use of a separate resuscitation area. The major drawback of the abovementioned system was the inability to see more than 2 patients simultaneously. A later separate COVID emergency department (CED) was used. In the CED, pending admissions was the major problem, as the C19 ward and C19 intensive care unit were becoming full; this problem was solved through central command help. In the normal ED, the main problem was the presentation of C19-positive patients sometimes hiding their symptoms and reaching inside the main ED, exposing the staff and patients. In order to combat this problem, all patients with an acute respiratory problem, even if C19 is not suspected, were taken to the corner cubicle. In this report, the changes made in the ED to combat C19 spread are discussed.