Retrospective Study of the Health Services’ Surge Capacity in the COVID-19 Pandemic Situation in Health Regions

Abstract

The covid-19 epidemic has caused a crisis in the public and private healthcare sectors in the healthcare system. It is also unpredictable when the outbreak will end. This research aimed to extract lessons from medical surge capacity in the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic using the conceptual framework of surge capacity, 4’S recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Space, Staff, Supply, and System were assessed in three phases: the preparation phase, the pandemic phase, and the post-pandemic phase. The findings were utilized to develop a policy proposal for the medical surge capacity in the outbreak situation. This study was conducted as a qualitative research by interviewing 14 critical informants recruited from purposive sampling among main hospitals in the health regions 2, 5 and 12. The structured interview was performed for data collection using the process of extracting lessons. The data were analyzed by content analysis and interpretation. The results showed that the hospitals of the three health regions used 4’S surge capacity in each operations phase: (1) in the preparation phase, the hospitals had activated the provincial Public Health Emergency Response Center (EOC) system and applied the existing disaster plans. Unnecessary services were reduced and prepared to reserve equipment and medical supplies; (2) the hospitals modified the existing space for infected patients, prepared cohort wards, organized shifts, and teams, prepared for personnel quarantine, personnel training, procurement, storage, equipment distribution, coordination, administration, and knowledge management of the emerging disease; and (3) the hospitals prepared and took steps to return to the post-pandemic phase. Preparations were made to accommodate non-COVID patients who were postponed or who were discharged early due to the epidemic, including a backup plan and a business continuation plan; continuing the networking with the private sector, and improving technology and the information systems.