The Effectiveness of the Disaster Plan on the Incidence of COVID-19 in Emergency Department Staff of King Abdulaziz Medical City in Western Region

Abstract

Background: Considering the rapid and emergent spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), hospitals were obligated to follow their emergency disaster plan [1]. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the disaster plan based on the incidence of COVID-19 in emergency department (ED) staff of King Abdulaziz Medical City – Western Region (KAMC-WR) for one year. Methods: After reviewing the multidisciplinary management guidelines of COVID- 19, a cohort retrospective study was applied from March 2020 to March 2021 to measure the incidence of COVID-19 [2]. All emergency department health care workers (HCWs) were included in the study. Results: During the study period, results showed that 9 (4.24%) HCWs were infected by COVID-19 whereas 203 (95.75%) HCWs were not infected. The prevalence of COVID-19 among ED staff in KAMC-WR was low as compared to previous studies [3,4,5,6,7,8]. This indicates the effectiveness of KAMC-WR disaster plan. KAMC-WR disaster plan strategies that have been taken to lower the risk of infection transmission were discussed in this paper. Conclusion: In conclusion, this study showed beneficial strategies of KAMC-WR disaster plan that lowered COVID-19 incidence among ED staff.