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Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic of 2020 to 2021 created unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, including those in the critical care transport sector. Critical care transport services had to rapidly adjust to changing patient demographics, distribution of...

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Autores principales: Frakes, Michael A., Denison, Todd, Leisten, David C., Wheeler, Jennifer, Boomhower, James, Cohen, Jason E., Wilcox, Susan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Air Medical Journal Associates. Published by Elsevier Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8691811/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35307153
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amj.2021.11.007
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author Frakes, Michael A.
Denison, Todd
Leisten, David C.
Wheeler, Jennifer
Boomhower, James
Cohen, Jason E.
Wilcox, Susan
author_facet Frakes, Michael A.
Denison, Todd
Leisten, David C.
Wheeler, Jennifer
Boomhower, James
Cohen, Jason E.
Wilcox, Susan
author_sort Frakes, Michael A.
collection PubMed
description The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic of 2020 to 2021 created unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, including those in the critical care transport sector. Critical care transport services had to rapidly adjust to changing patient demographics, distribution of diagnoses, and transport utilization stratagem. To evolve with the pandemic, organizations developed new protocols and guidelines in rapid succession. The growth bore out of a need to cater to this new patient population and their safety as well as the safety of the crewmembers from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The critical changes to operations involved adaptability, efficient communication, continual reassessment, and implementation of novel approaches. Although these lessons learned were specific to coronavirus disease 2019, many processes will apply to future respiratory epidemics and pandemics. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) pandemic of 2020 to 2021 created unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, including critical care transport (CCT) organizations. The changes were numerous, including a change in the patient population, with a rapid decrease in trauma and pediatrics to a preponderance of adult patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. CCT teams were called on to transport these patients at potential risk to themselves, especially early in 2020, before the effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE) was determined. Even seemingly simple tasks, such as defining a person under investigation (PUI) for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), varied from institution to institution, putting transport organizations in the middle of conflicts. Agility has always been an essential part of any CCT organization because clinicians and managers must adapt to an unpredictable environment. However, the frequency and speed of changes occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented. This report offers our best practices based on our experience and the available data. Although these procedures were developed for the COVID-19 pandemic, they will logically apply to future respiratory outbreaks and illuminate helpful changes for otherwise quotidian operations.
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spelling pubmed-86918112021-12-22 Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic Frakes, Michael A. Denison, Todd Leisten, David C. Wheeler, Jennifer Boomhower, James Cohen, Jason E. Wilcox, Susan Air Med J Brief Report The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic of 2020 to 2021 created unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, including those in the critical care transport sector. Critical care transport services had to rapidly adjust to changing patient demographics, distribution of diagnoses, and transport utilization stratagem. To evolve with the pandemic, organizations developed new protocols and guidelines in rapid succession. The growth bore out of a need to cater to this new patient population and their safety as well as the safety of the crewmembers from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The critical changes to operations involved adaptability, efficient communication, continual reassessment, and implementation of novel approaches. Although these lessons learned were specific to coronavirus disease 2019, many processes will apply to future respiratory epidemics and pandemics. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) pandemic of 2020 to 2021 created unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, including critical care transport (CCT) organizations. The changes were numerous, including a change in the patient population, with a rapid decrease in trauma and pediatrics to a preponderance of adult patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. CCT teams were called on to transport these patients at potential risk to themselves, especially early in 2020, before the effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE) was determined. Even seemingly simple tasks, such as defining a person under investigation (PUI) for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), varied from institution to institution, putting transport organizations in the middle of conflicts. Agility has always been an essential part of any CCT organization because clinicians and managers must adapt to an unpredictable environment. However, the frequency and speed of changes occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented. This report offers our best practices based on our experience and the available data. Although these procedures were developed for the COVID-19 pandemic, they will logically apply to future respiratory outbreaks and illuminate helpful changes for otherwise quotidian operations. Air Medical Journal Associates. Published by Elsevier Inc. 2022 2021-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8691811/ /pubmed/35307153 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amj.2021.11.007 Text en © 2021 Air Medical Journal Associates. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Brief Report
Frakes, Michael A.
Denison, Todd
Leisten, David C.
Wheeler, Jennifer
Boomhower, James
Cohen, Jason E.
Wilcox, Susan
Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title_full Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title_fullStr Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title_short Operational Policies and Procedures for Critical Care Transport During a Respiratory Pandemic
title_sort operational policies and procedures for critical care transport during a respiratory pandemic
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8691811/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35307153
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amj.2021.11.007
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