New suggestions released for mass critical care utilizing COVID-19 research
September 7, 2021
GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS –
The journal CHEST® recently published an important update to the
2014 consensus statement
by the Task Force for Mass Critical Care (TFMCC) on providing mass critical
care utilizing research gained through experiencing the 2020 COVID-19
pandemic.
The article,
Mass Critical Care Surge Response during COVID-19: Implementation
of Contingency Strategies A Preliminary Report of findings from the
Task Force for Mass Critical Care
, shares operational strategies to support hospitals and communities during
mass critical care events.
Ten suggestions emphasizing the importance for maintaining contingency
level care are outlined in the article. These include augmentation of the
clinical workforce, rapidly responding to surges with resources or
load-balancing patients to other hospitals’ ICU beds and broad use of
telemedicine technology, all with the intent to maintain functionally
equivalent care and avoid crisis care conditions.
Crisis level care is when contingency level care is not sustainable and
care becomes prioritized or limited, leading to substantial risk of adverse
outcomes and potential triage of scarce resources.
“The objective of this paper is to share operational strategies at a
hospital, health system and state level to continue to provide contingency
level care and avoid crisis care during the pandemic,” says Jeffrey
Dichter, MD, FCCP, member of the TFMCC and a co-author of the paper. “This
includes early transfer strategies to further load-balance care along with
several other critical suggestions.”
Strategy proposals fall within four critical areas: Staffing,
load-balancing, communication, and technology. Suggestions from each of
these areas include:
-
Staffing
–
We suggest integrating non-critical care trained staff coupled with
expert critical care clinicians to provide a far greater amount of care
than the ICU staff could provide without help and resilience strategies
to support all health care staff.
-
Load-Balancing
–
We strongly suggest active monitoring of resource strain determined by
frontline clinical leaders and adding resources as available or load
balancing (transferring) patients to hospitals with open ICU beds.
-
Communication
–
We re-emphasize that designated clinicians should actively participate
in hospital incident command structure, thereby improving situational
awareness and ensuring bidirectional communication.
-
Technology
–
We suggest hospitals apply telemedicine technology to augment critical
care early and in the broadest sense possible.
Read the full list
here
About the American College of Chest Physicians and the journal CHEST
The American College of Chest Physicians® (CHEST) is the global
leader in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of chest diseases. Its
mission is to champion advanced clinical practice, education, communication
and research in chest medicine. It serves as an essential connection to
clinical knowledge and resources for its 19,000+ members from around the
world who provide patient care in pulmonary, critical care and sleep
medicine. The journal CHEST®, the official publication of the
American College of Chest Physicians, features the best in peer-reviewed,
cutting-edge original research in the multidisciplinary specialties of
chest medicine: Pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine and related
disciplines. Published since 1935, it is home to the highly regarded
clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements. For information
about the American College of Chest Physicians, and its flagship journal CHEST, visit chestnet.org.