COVID-19 pre-procedural testing strategy and early outcomes at a large tertiary care children’s hospital
Purpose With the emergence of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, institutions were tasked with developing individualized pre-procedural testing strategies that allowed for re-initiation of elective procedures within national and state guidelines. This report describes the experience o...
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Published in | Pediatric surgery international Vol. 37; no. 7; pp. 871 - 880 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Berlin/Heidelberg
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
01.07.2021
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Purpose
With the emergence of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, institutions were tasked with developing individualized pre-procedural testing strategies that allowed for re-initiation of elective procedures within national and state guidelines. This report describes the experience of a single US children’s hospital (Children’s Wisconsin, CW) in developing a universal pre-procedural COVID-19 testing protocol and reports early outcomes.
Methods
The CW pre-procedural COVID-19 response began with the creation of a multi-disciplinary taskforce that sought to develop a strategy for universal pre-procedural COVID-19 testing which (1) maximized patient safety, (2) prevented in-hospital viral transmission, (3) conserved resources, and (4) allowed for resumption of procedural care within institutional capacity.
Results
Of 11,209 general anesthetics performed at CW from March 16, 2020 to October 31, 2020, 11,150 patients (99.5%) underwent pre-procedural COVID-19 testing. Overall, 1.4% of pre-procedural patients tested positive for COVID-19. By June 2020, CW was operating at near-normal procedural volume and there were no documented cases of in-hospital viral transmission. Only 0.5% of procedures were performed under augmented COVID-19 precautions (negative pressure environment and highest-level personal protective equipment).
Conclusion
CW successfully developed a multi-disciplinary pre-procedural COVID-19 testing protocol that enabled resumption of near-normal procedural volume within three months while limiting in-hospital viral transmission and resource use. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0179-0358 1437-9813 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s00383-021-04878-2 |