A Pan-Canadian Narrative Review on the Protocols for COVID-19 and Canadian Emergency Departments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2021.958Keywords:
COVID-19, Canada, Emergency Departments, Pre-hospital careAbstract
First described in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a global pandemic on March 11th, 2020. Canada identified its first positive COVID-19 patient on January 25th, 2020. The Canadian government and heath care system immediately started discussing how best to respond to this pandemic. It was hypothesized that potentially positive and confirmed positive COVID-19 patients would present to emergency departments across the country. It has now been over a year since the first positive patient was identified in Canada, and there has yet to be a narrative review that explores how Canadian emergency departments have responded to the novel COVID-19 virus. This narrative review will discuss measures that were taken thus far, including pre-hospital care, the use and implementation of virtual care, the importance of simulation training, protocols regarding patient screening at presentation to the emergency department, the use of personal protective equipment, and lastly rural emergency department response. This narrative review may be beneficial as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, by providing a concise summary of measures that were taken in various emergency departments across Canada to prevent the spread of the virus.
Metrics
References
World Health Organization. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 2020.
Brondani M, Cua D, Maragha T, Shayanfar M, Mathu-Muju K, von Bergmann H, et al. A Pan-Canadian narrative review on the protocols for reopening dental services during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC oral health. 2020 Dec;20(1):1-3.
Scarabel F, Pellis L, Bragazzi NL, Wu J. Canada needs to rapidly escalate public health interventions for its COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Infectious Disease Modelling. 2020 Jan 1;5:316-22.
Lin M, Beliavsky A, Katz K, Powis JE, Ng W, Williams V, Groves H, Muller MP, Vaisman A, Hota S, Johnstone J. What can early Canadian experience screening for COVID-19 teach us about how to prepare for a pandemic? CMAJ. 2020 Mar 23;192(12):E314-8.
Devine DV. SARS in Canada: Lessons learned for the blood operator. Transfusion Medicine (Oxford, England). 2020 Jun 1.
Glauser, W. Proposed protocol to keep COVID-19 out of hospitals 2020.
Reece S, Johnson M, Simard K, Mundell A, Terpstra N, Cronin T, Grant V. Use of Virtually Facilitated Simulation to Improve COVID-19 Preparedness in Rural and Remote Canada. 2021. Clinical Simulation in Nursing.
Rosenfield D, Lim R, Tse S. Implementing virtual care in the emergency department: building on the pediatric experience during COVID-19. 2021: E 15-18.
Brittain M, Michel C, Baranowski L, Armour R, Poll A, Helmer J. Community paramedicine in British Columbia: A virtual response to COVID-19. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine. 2020 May 21;17(1).
Chaplin T, McColl T, Petrosoniak A, Hall AK. “Building the plane as you fly”: Simulation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2020 Sep;22(5):576-8.
Marchand-Senécal X, Kozak R, Mubareka S, Salt N, Gubbay JB, Eshaghi A, Allen V, Li Y, Bastien N, Gilmour M, Ozaldin O. Diagnosis and management of first case of COVID-19 in Canada: lessons applied from SARS-CoV-1. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2020 Oct 15;71(16):2207-10.
Harris A, Beatty L, Sowers N, Campbell SG, Petrie D, Hung D, Kovacs G. Emergency medicine airway leads: a rapid response distributed educational model for emergency department COVID-19 airway management. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2021 Jan 4:1-4.
Ravani P, Saxinger L, Chandran U, Fonseca K, Murphy S, Lang E, Manns B. COVID-19 screening of asymptomatic patients admitted through emergency departments in Alberta: a prospective quality-improvement study. 2020. CMAJ open, 8(4), E887.
COVID-19 Patient Screening Guidance Document Version 4.0, June 11, 2020.
Eckbo EJ, Locher K, Caza M, Li L, Lavergne, V, and Charles M. Evaluation of the BioFire® COVID-19 test and Respiratory Panel 2.1 for rapid identification of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal swab samples. Diagnostic microbiology and infectious disease. 2021 99(3), 115260.
Savage D, Fisher A, Choudhury S, Ohle R, Strasser R, Orkin A, Mago V. Investigating the implications of COVID-19 for the rural and remote population of Northern Ontario using a mathematical model. medRxiv. 2020 Jan 1.
Walsh A, Warren Z, Robichaud P, Stuart A, Bodie K, Lew J, Moore K. A rural community hospital's response to COVID-19. Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine. 2021 Jan 1;26(1):38.
Fleet R, Turgeon-Pelchat C, Smithman MA, Alami H, Fortin JP, Poitras J, Ouellet J, Gravel J, Renaud MP, Dupuis G, Légaré F. Improving delivery of care in rural emergency departments: a qualitative pilot study mobilizing health professionals, decision-makers and citizens in Baie-Saint-Paul and the Magdalen Islands, Québec, Canada. BMC health services research. 2020 Dec 1;20(1):62.
National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, 2018–2019 to 2020–2021 (open-year data), Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Published
How to Cite
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site; with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from the Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Enforcement of copyright
The IJMS takes the protection of copyright very seriously.
If the IJMS discovers that you have used its copyright materials in contravention of the license above, the IJMS may bring legal proceedings against you seeking reparation and an injunction to stop you using those materials. You could also be ordered to pay legal costs.
If you become aware of any use of the IJMS' copyright materials that contravenes or may contravene the license above, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org
Infringing material
If you become aware of any material on the website that you believe infringes your or any other person's copyright, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org
