Author: Eva Christensen, Bethany Daigle, Ted McDonald, Chandy Somayaji
Year: 2020
Category:
Health Publications
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As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, policy makers and health care workers are progressively trying to determine best practices for handling the disease – particularly when caring for infected patients. One key question that emerges is whether having dedicated resources (spaces and services) for COVID-19 effectively controls the spread, decreases the severity, and mitigates the cost of the disease – in terms of costs to health care, societal disruption, individual health outcomes (such as scarring of the lungs), and, ultimately, lives lost. This report presents a summary of how health systems in various countries have been separating healthcare resources during pandemic medical management. This includes measures aimed at separation of COVID-19 and non-COVID patient resources, both in terms of separate physical structures for dedicated COVID care and of separation within existing structures, as well as policies aimed at preventing overlap and exposure between point sources of care for medical personnel.
