Methodology for restarting hospital activities after a pandemic: COVID-19 experience

Abstract

In addition to the health responsibility of hospitals in managing this COVID-19 crisis, hospital managers must also ensure the financial viability of healthcare structures. This is why, at the dawn of a lockdown exit, managers must anticipate the identification of recovery scenarios. This point refers in particular to the selection and scale of progression of hospital activities, and also to the impacts this will have on staff and patients in the short and medium term. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of literature on the subject.The aim of this document is therefore to propose a methodology for resuming the medical, economic and social activities of a healthcare network or hospital.In our approach, we identify 6 stages following the COVID-19 peak: assessment of the situation, Act 2, development of scenarios-criteria-conditions, restarting, continuous improvement, and transversal activities.The entirety of our developed methodology is supported by a pragmatic approach with, in particular, the creation of specific tools for each stage of the process. This strategy and these tools have been created with the operational players and adapted to meet the specific features of each hospital while respecting the coherence of the healthcare network's decisions.We are convinced that this approach can be exported on a larger scale to inspire other healthcare networks and other hospitals that have also found themselves without the weapons to prepare for the resumption of hospital activities.