A forecasting tool for a hospital to plan inbound transfers of COVID-19 patients from other regions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In April 2021, the province of Ontario, Canada, was at the peak of its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity in the Toronto metropolitan area was insufficient to handle local COVID patients. As a result, some patients from the Toronto metropolitan area were transferred to other regions.

Methods

A spreadsheet-based Monte Carlo simulation tool was built to help a large tertiary hospital plan and make informed decisions about the number of transfer patients it could accept from other hospitals. The model was implemented in Microsoft Excel to enable it to be widely distributed and easily used. The model estimates the probability that each ward will be overcapacity and percentiles of utilization daily for a one-week planning horizon.

SUBMITTER: Begen MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10874054 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature