Adaptation of a specialized cardiac centre to patient management and health care services in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis: The Bahrain experience

Abstract

BackgroundHospitals worldwide had to implement several measures to control SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, particularly in cardiac center. However, the extent to which these adapted measures have been perceived by the nurse care provider as effective needs to be explored in order to identify the most successful measures that can be considered in future health care crises. AimTo explore the adaptation of patient management and cardiac health care services at a specialized cardiac center in the Kingdom of Bahrain during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsA cross-sectional study was employed among nurses working at the main cardiac in Bahrain centre using a convenience sampling method along with the Patient Management and Cardiac Health Care Services questionnaire. ResultsA total of 214 nurses were enrolled in the study. Most participants were females (89.3 %) with a mean age of 34.6 ± 7.9 years. The majority of participants have experienced a reduction in the number of hospitalized patients (87.4 %) during the Coronavirus-19 pandemic. According to the participants, smartphone applications were used to overcome face-to-face consultations (52.8–65 %) and the appointments were changed to phone consultations (60.7 %). Outpatient and diagnostic services were the most affected services (95.8 % and 94.4 %, respectively). In contrast, the emergency and critical care units were the least affected services (56.6 % and 30.8 %, respectively), (p ˂ 0.001). ConclusionEssential cardiac services continued to function during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, several diagnostic and outpatient services were disrupted. Thus, there is an urgent need for developing a protocol for care of patients admitted in cardiac center during health crisis times.