Ibarra P, Duarte JC. 10/5/2021
The current COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on healthcare practice around the world, imposing a strain on most systems that has exposed weaknesses. As such, in Latin America (LATAM) most countries have experienced suspension of significant schedules surgical procedures to decrease the demand on healthcare services in the face of this pandemic. Therefore, proposals to resume these services are needed, as there is a major backlog to be resolved. This paper intends to generate a basic framework to adapt locally to reinstate scheduled procedures as safely as possible.
This proposal is based on an unstructured review of the current literature, and on Confederación Latinoamericana de Sociedades de Anestesiología (CLASA) webinars on this subject with international experts in the field.
Resumption is recommended when the incidence of local COVID-19 infection rate is decreasing.
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Institutions should consider these four aspects before resumption:
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space, stuff, staff, and system, each graded as red, amber, or green. It is recommended that all four should have a green grading to consider resuming activities