Covid-19: implications for prehospital, emergency and hospital care in patients with acute coronary syndromes.

ABSTRACT

Hospitals play a critical role in providing communities with essential medical care during all types of disaster. Depending on their scope and nature, disasters can lead to a rapidly increasing service demand that can overwhelm the functional capacity and safety of hospitals and the healthcare system at large. Planning during the community outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is critical for maintaining healthcare services during our response. This paper describes, besides general measures in times of a pandemic, also the necessary changes in the invasive diagnosis and treatment of patients presenting with different entities of acute coronary syndromes including structural adaptations (networks, spokes and hub centres) and therapeutic adjustments.