Strategies to convert hospital beds for COVID-19 patients to minimize emergency department overcrowding.

ABSTRACT: Background: The shortage of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients has been one critical cause of Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding. Purpose: We aimed at elaborating a strategy of conversion of hospital beds, from non-COVID-19 to COVID-19 care, minimizing both ED overcrowding and the number of beds eventually converted. Research Design: Observational retrospective study. Study Sample: We considered the centralized database of all ED admissions in the Lombardy region of Italy during the second "COVID-19 wave" (October to December 2020). Data collection and Analysis: We analyzed all admissions to 82 EDs. We devised a family of Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the performance of hospital beds' conversion strategies triggered by ED crowding of COVID-19 p

SUBMITTER: Nattino G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11545217 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature