Key info


Date:
17 April 2020

Authors:
Paula Christen, Josh C D’Aeth, Alessandra Løchen, Ruth McCabe, Dheeya Rizmie, Nora Schmit, Shevanthi Nayagam, Marisa Miraldo, Peter White, Paul Aylin, Alex Bottle, Pablo N. Perez Guzman, Christl Donnelly, Azra Ghani, Neil Ferguson, Katharina Hauck1

1Correspondence:
k.hauck@imperial.ac.uk

Download the full PDF for Report 15 Download the PDF for the hospital planner user guide Download the hospital planner See all reports

WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London

Now published in Medical Care; 21-01-2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000001502

Summary

Planning for extreme surges in demand for hospital care of patients requiring urgent life-saving treatment for COVID-19, and other conditions, is one of the most challenging tasks facing healthcare commissioners and care providers during the pandemic. Due to uncertainty in expected patient numbers requiring care, as well as evolving needs day by day, planning hospital capacity is challenging. Health systems that are well prepared for the pandemic can better cope with large and sudden changes in demand by implementing strategies to ensure adequate access to care. Thereby the burden of the pandemic can be mitigated, and many lives saved.

This report presents the J-IDEA pandemic planner, a hospital planning tool to calculate how much capacity in terms of beds, staff and ventilators is obtained by implementing healthcare provision interventions affecting the management of patient care in hospitals. We show how to assess baseline capacity, and then calculate how much capacity is gained by various healthcare interventions using impact estimates that are generated as part of this study. Interventions are informed by a rapid review of policy decisions implemented or being considered in 12 European countries over the past few months, an evaluation of the impact of the interventions on capacity using a variety of research methods, and by a review of key parameters in the care of COVID-19 patients.

The J-IDEA planner is publicly available, interactive and adaptable to different and changing circumstances and newly emerging evidence. The planner estimates the additional number of beds, medical staff and crucial medical equipment obtained under various healthcare interventions using flexible inputs on assumptions of existing capacities, the number of hospitalisations, beds-to-staff ratios, and staff absences due to COVID-19. A detailed user guide accompanies the planner. The planner was developed rapidly and has limitations which we will address in future iterations. It supports decision-makers in delivering a fast, effective and coordinated response to the pandemic that upholds the aims that societies have set for their healthcare systems and the medical treatment of their citizens.

We welcome feedback from users of the tool and readers of this report to help us to update the tool iteratively.

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