An interdisciplinary approach to the management of critically ill patients during covid-19 pandemic; an experience of a university hospital in England.

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 pandemic presents significant challenges in delivering safe and efficient patient care, especially during the surges. In all health care systems, provision of available critical care facilities is a scarce resource, even in normal times. Problematic is not just the limitation of physical spaces in intensive care units, but also the availability of trained personnel. The critical care model, developed in Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham to cope with the surge of COVID-19 patients, is based on early implementation of an interdisciplinary approach and extensive cooperation between the branches of practice, allowing to address both challenges. The main pillars are early upskilling of non-critical care staff, creation of safe, streamlined clinical pathways, adjustment of the physical layout of critical care units and comprehensive cross-town cooperation allowing to accommodate an increased number of patients, requiring intensive care. The model was well tested in clinical practice, enabling the hospital to increase the critical care footprint by more than 200% during the pandemic's surge between March and May 2020.