Topic Collection: COVID-19 Hospital Resources Collection

This tip sheet identifies 10 actions for hospitals to consider related to the blood supply during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report suggests a range of strategies that may be used to increase hospital critical care surge capacity. The report is accompanied by an online Interactive Critical Care Surge Response Tool that allows users to estimate current surge capacity and see the effects of various user inputs.

This page includes information on the Ventilator Training Alliance, a mobile app with video tutorials, instruction manuals, and other training materials provided by manufacturers to inform use of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic. The free app for iOS and Android may be accessed from the page.

This frequently updated online guide compiles resources helpful to emergency physicians in the evaluation and treatment of COVID-19. Topics include personal safety, work safety, emergency medical services, triage, patient presentation, assessment, diagnosis, risk stratification, treatment, special populations, business, regulations and liability, personal well-being and resilience, and impact on education, licensure, and credentialing.

This frequently updated web page collects resources to assist physicians in their response to COVID-19. It includes background information on coronaviruses; clinical response information (transmission, presentation, diagnosis, treatment, infection control); and links to additional resources, including clinical care resources, telehealth, patient education, coding, ethics, and physician well-being.

This downloadable, Excel-based tool allows users to estimate medical air and oxygen capacity while providing six different types of therapies to COVID-19 patients.

This resource page offers considerations related to patient placement in airborne infection isolation rooms. It includes a table of air change clearance rates, unit conversion considerations with examples, and high-efficiency particulate air considerations with diagrams.

This toolkit highlights lessons learned related to executive emergency orders, drug utilization, pharmacy workforce management, facility surge, and pharmacy service lines along with resources created in response to COVID-19.

This webpage shares information on the Arizona Surge Line, a 24/7 call line that facilitates the interfacility transfer of patients during a healthcare surge. Included is a link to an operating manual describing the planning, execution, and outcomes of the Arizona Surge Line during the response to COVID-19 and its applicability to future emergencies. Other resources include webinars introducing the service; process flow maps; protocols and other resources for participating hospitals, post-acute care facilities, and volunteer critical care and palliative care physicians; the executive order establishing the service; and news articles describing the Arizona Surge Line.

This updated, illustrated guidance for healthcare settings provides background information on the COVID-19 pandemic; identifies life safety and other goals; and categorizes information by suggested engineering approaches, specific "how-to" and unique areas, surge areas, facilities/maintenance, and medical gas/vacuum systems.

In May 2020, ASPR TRACIE hosted the webinar COVID-19: Healthcare System Operations Strategies and Experiences to highlight pandemic response experiences from some of the hardest hit hospitals at the time. Commander Sara Jager, M.D., Chief Medical Officer with Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation (Arizona), shared her experiences from a tribal hospital that serves Navajo Nation; she updated some of the information from the webinar in July 2020.

Speakers from some of the hardest hit hospitals across the U.S. discuss their COVID-19 experiences in this webinar.

Between September 9, 2020 and October 20, 2020, the ASPR TRACIE team interviewed decision makers and lead physicians at four designated COVID-19 hospitals. The interviews focused on the facilities’ decision-making processes, operations and logistics (space, staff, stuff), and general lessons learned. These facilities were already operational or existing hospitals; they were not “Alternate Care Sites.” Additionally, the entire facility was designated to solely treat COVID-19 positive patients; all other patients were transferred or directed to nearby hospitals.

This toolkit can help hospital emergency managers and planners manage large numbers of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Imperial County, located in southeastern California, has a population of approximately 181,000, and shares borders with Arizona and Mexico. El Centro serves as the county seat, and the county’s economy is based primarily on agriculture. Two hospitals serve the county: El Centro Regional Medical Center and Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District. Imperial County has been a COVID-19 “hot spot,” and in May 2020, Mexicali’s hospitals reached capacity and announced that they would divert American patients to El Centro, creating a near-instant patient surge, and necessitating the movement of over 625 patients. This article details that process.

COVID-19 patients have specific critical care and isolation needs and many hospitals across the country were not prepared or built to treat the significant patient surge in 2020. Erica Kuhlmann, DO, COVID ICU Medical Director, M Health Fairview (MN), shared her experiences transforming the system’s Bethesda facility to a dedicated COVID-19 hospital in 2020.

COVID-19 patient surges have prompted healthcare facilities to be innovative in record time, updating and creating new plans as lessons were learned. In this article, ASPR TRACIE highlights how four healthcare executives from different states and settings collaborated and used data to manage patient surge statewide.

COVID-19 challenged every aspect of healthcare facilities across the country. From patient care to engineering, environmental health & safety, public safety, and food & nutrition—every department and specialty was affected somehow by the virus. ASPR TRACIE interviewed Michael Fiore, CIH, Corporate Senior Director for Environmental Health and Safety and Clinical Operations for NorthShore University HealthSystem in Illinois. In this role, he oversees the environment of care, including nonclinical areas that support clinical operations that promote a safe, comfortable and healing environment.

This Medical Operations Coordination Centers Toolkit, updated in 2024 to include burn and pediatric annexes, offers considerations that can help state, local, tribal, and territorial governments; cooperative entities such as health care coalitions or trauma/emergency medical services regions; and health care systems ensure optimal balancing of patients across health care facilities and systems.

The speakers provide an overview of the "Surge Roadmap" and related COVID-19 patient management strategies.

This series of videos provides training to non-respiratory therapists on basic respiratory care and ventilator management to increase healthcare surge capacity during a mass casualty incident. The videos cover topics including infection control, terms and definitions, manual and mechanical ventilation, and airway maintenance and suctioning. The training is intended for non-respiratory health care providers to be cross-trained as extenders delivering care to adult patients.

This document describes a project to cross-train non-respiratory therapists to provide basic respiratory care and ventilator management to provide surge staffing capacity during mass casualty incidents. The authors reviewed the literature and legal and regulatory requirements, identified competencies, developed a curriculum, pilot tested the training, conducted exercises, and provided recommendations.

The authors list 22 suggestions specific to surge capacity and mass critical care under the following topics: stockpiling of equipment, supplies, and pharmaceuticals; staff preparation and organization; patient flow and distribution; deployable critical care services; and using transportation assets to support surge response. The document includes supply and equipment lists (Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6) and staffing recommendations that may help inform a hospital’s COVID-19 response.

This online course prepares licensed non-intensive care unit clinicians to support hospital critical care teams. The course covers: principles and physiology of mechanical ventilation, initial ventilator setting and adjustments, troubleshooting the ventilator, and ventilating patients in special circumstances.

This supplement to the Medical Operations Coordination Cells (MOCC) Toolkit (https://files.asprtracie.hhs.gov/documents/fema-mocc-toolkit.pdf) provides information on emergency medical services (EMS) and transportation issues. It includes information on coordination and planning with partners before, during, and after transport; medical oversight; standard operating procedures; personnel; infection control; ambulance preparation and configuration; and patient preparation.

The General Surge Capacity Model provides one to thirty day ahead projections of an individual hospital's demand for medical and intensive care unit beds, ventilators, personal protective equipment, medication, and staffing. The Advanced Model offers expanded functionality.

This two-pager summarizes critical care planning for COVID-19. It includes a figure depicting the expansion of critical care from conventional to contingency/crisis levels. The document offers key points to operationalize the concept in terms of space, staffing, supplies and to provide critical care.

This article presents 10 suggestions pertaining to the principles that should guide surge capacity and capability planning for mass critical care in disasters or pandemics.

The authors assessed the effects of hospital surge on COVID-19 mortality through a retrospective cohort study of administrative hospital data. They found an association between surge and mortality risk and suggested that nearly one in four COVID-19 deaths studied could be attributed to hospital surge.

This playbook follows a space, stuff, staff strategy to rapidly expand inpatient and critical care capacity. It includes an overview of surge capacity concepts, checklists, tables, decision trees, diagrams, and supply and equipment lists.

This article lists considerations related to identifying alternate staffing resources, developing a team-based approach to patient management, and addressing administrative concerns on staffing, nursing leadership concerns, and nurse safety and resilience while planning for COVID-19 critical care surge.

This document outlines a process states can use to gather hospital data needed to identify where ventilators are needed and deliver them directly to receiving hospitals.

This toolkit can help healthcare organizations plan and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes: patient screening algorithms, sample signage, assessment criteria, infection prevention guidance, a visitor screening tool, personal protective equipment doffing checklists, and specimen collection instructions.

This report documents key events throughout the first 18 months of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Missouri hospitals. In addition to statewide data, the report highlights examples of how specific hospitals managed various aspects of the response.

This planning guide from New York City Health + Hospitals provides high-level planning information for frontline hospital multidisciplinary teams to support planning and training for the initial care of suspected special pathogen patients while determining whether and when they will be transferred to another facility for further assessment and treatment.

Hospital planners can use this checklist to prepare for and manage patient surge. It includes directions for operationalizing a surge unit and goals/items for the first 24-48 hours, 48-72 hours, and after 72 hours.

This document outlines the statewide hospital plan for a surge of COVID-19 patients. The regionally-based plan defines four tiers of operations based on the amount of surge.

This six-part webinar series offers information on managing patient surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics include managing incident command, the emergency department, elective and urgent surgery, nurse staffing, patient discharge, and telehealth. Recordings and summary reports are available for each webinar.

The COVID Staffing Project unites collaborators from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Michigan Medicine, the Department of Learning Health Sciences, and the Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety, and the Procedural Learning and Safety Collaborative. The tools developed support hospitals in projecting frontline workforce needs, redeploying clinical teams, and protecting the health and well-being of providers.

This web page includes frequently updated COVID-19 information for healthcare workers. Resources include: testing and patient evaluation algorithms, clinical guidance, operational guidance, personal protective equipment information, resources for patients and their caregivers, symptom screening tools, and sample signage.

This web page features clinical pathways to assist providers in evaluating, diagnosing, and triaging patients possibly infected with COVID-19 while following appropriate infection prevention protocols. Algorithms exist for primary care, ancillary services, subspecialty ambulatory, and emergency department and inpatient settings.

This frequently updated webpage provides COVID-19 microbiology, clinical, sites of infection, treatment, and follow up information.

This frequently updated page includes numerous resources to guide the management of COVID-19 patients including treatment guidelines for adults and pediatric patients, information on personal protective equipment, information on respiratory support, palliative care resources, scripts, and information about the convalescent plasma program.

This page - updated frequently - provides protocols and resources for providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Included are patient care resources (ambulatory triage and workflow, discharge guidelines, worker protections, guidelines and treatments, reopening of services), information for practices (forms, guidance, signage), communications and provider resources, and links to additional information.

These frequently updated guidelines offer: 1) information on personal protective equipment, 2) algorithms, 3) other clinical information and announcements, 4) control plan and testing, 5) signage in multiple languages, 6) forms, 7) staff education materials, 8) provider and staff training resources, 9) patient education, 10) email digests, and 11) external resources.

This page offers a timeline of the approval of Veklury (remdesivir) for treatment of patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization and describes how it has been allocated under U.S. government oversight.

This article provides an update to the recommendations of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Coronavirus Disease 2019 Panel related to infection control and testing, hemodynamics, ventilation, and therapy.

This document reflects the guidance of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign COVID-19 panel, composed of 36 experts from 12 countries. The panel issued 54 statements on: 1) infection control, 2) laboratory diagnosis and specimens, 3) hemodynamic support, 4) ventilatory support, and 5) COVID-19 therapy. Of the 54 statements, four are best practices, nine are strong recommendations, 35 are weak recommendations, and six questions have no recommendations. Accompanying infographics depict a summary of recommendations on managing patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome and COVID-19 and a summary of recommendations on the initial management of hypoxic COVID-19 patients.

This page includes several resources including guidance on basic and advanced life support, infographics, resuscitation algorithms, training courses, and podcasts.

This page features links to the report of the Scarce Resources Roundtable and to shared resources from the ASN/HHS roundtable that was held on July 28 and July 30, 2020. Participants were clinicians working in acute in-hospital nephrology settings during a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic.

This ASPR TRACIE technical assistance response details palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This ASPR TRACIE TA response includes links to guidance and clinical resources on high-flow nasal cannulas, and other relevant materials.

Dr. Prachand shares how healthcare providers used the "MeNTS" scoring process to balance the COVID response against the need to provide care to non-COVID patients in this brief webinar.

The goal of occupational therapy is to be able to get patients back to where they want to be, via a mix of physical rehabilitation, cognitive activity analysis, and improving safety, function, and independence. ASPR TRACIE interviewed Jamie Wilcox, OTD, OTR/L, Kelsey Peterson, OTD, OTR/L, Neuro-IFRAH® Certified, and Carnie Lewis, OTD, OTR/L, Neuro-IFRAH® Certified, who work in acute care settings at the Keck Medical Center of the University of Southern California to learn more about the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on their jobs. Heather Parsons, the Vice President of Federal Affairs for the American Occupational Therapy Association, also participated in the interview.

Respiratory therapists (RT) are key members of healthcare teams in a variety of settings. Over the past year, they have played a significant role in the treatment and management of COVID-19 patients. ASPR TRACIE interviewed Katie Mattare, BS, RRT, Clinical Coordinator for the Adult Respiratory Therapy Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland to gain insight into the RT experience during the pandemic.

Physical therapists (PTs) are an integral component of healthcare teams in a variety of settings (e.g., emergency departments, acute care settings, home health care, and outpatient settings). In hospitals (i.e., acute care and/or inpatient rehabilitation), they may help develop treatment plans, teach patients how to use exercise techniques, and provide hands-on manual therapy to help with healing and improve function. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the way PTs were able to provide care, while the number of patients who needed both inpatient and outpatient physical therapy increased. ASPR TRACIE met with Lindsay Harmon-Matthews, PT, DPT, MPH, J.J. Kuczynski, PT, DPT, OCS, Anthony Ganim, PT, MPT, MBA, and Michael Martin, PT, MPT (The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and other affiliations) to learn more about their experiences caring for COVID-19 patients during and after hospitalization.

These online guidelines systematically review the evidence related to seven potential COVID-19 treatment options and grade recommendations as strong, conditional, or a knowledge gap. Complementary recommendations are available on diagnostics and infection prevention.

This updated page recommends infection prevention and control (IPC) practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and particular IPC practices when caring for a patient with suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This algorithm depicts the clinical pathway for assessing children for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome.

This algorithm depicts the clinical pathway for assessing children with COVID-19.

This page includes guidance on the administration and study of investigational COVID-19 convalescent plasma. It includes pathways for use, information on collection of convalescent plasma, labeling, and recordkeeping.

These guidelines highlight recent updates and general considerations followed by a table showing treatment considerations and special considerations for various clinical situations. Extensive references are listed for each of the therapeutic options.

These online guidelines systematically review the evidence related to eight COVID-19 infection prevention practices and grade recommendations as strong, conditional, or a knowledge gap. Related guidelines are available for treatment and management and diagnostics.

This report summarizes case reports and case series about multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults associated with SARS-CoV-2.

This illustrated article provides a comprehensive literature review of long haul COVID. The authors review its pathophysiology, organ-specific sequelae, and considerations for multidisciplinary patient care.

This resource page includes several editable airway management infographics, a training video on tracheal intubation, and a consensus statement on airway management and tracheal intubation of adult COVID-19 patients.

This resource offers a clinical case definition for long COVID and describes the process used to achieve consensus.

Jill Taylor, Ph.D., Senior Advisor for Scientific Affairs, Association of Public Health Laboratories shares essential information regarding the use of point-of-care tests (including molecular and antigen) for COVID-19 diagnosis in this short video.

This toolkit includes resources describing the different types of testing, information on available tests and testing services, factors to consider when developing a testing strategy, and answers to frequently asked testing questions.

This updated page offers guidance about the regulatory requirements for Point-of-Care (POC) testing, specimen collection & handling, help with performing POC tests, reporting requirements and frequently asked questions about POC Testing.

These updated guidelines detail processing and handling of clinical specimens for COVID-19 by specimen type and priority, and address storage and shipping.

This algorithm depicts the clinical pathway for emergency department screening for COVID-19.

This algorithm depicts the clinical pathway for assessing children with COVID-19.

This one-pager developed jointly by the College of Urgent Care Medicine and the American College of Emergency Physicians assists clinicians in determining whether suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients should be discharged to their homes or transferred to an emergency department.

Position statement Interim-20-ID-01 – approved in April 2020 - created a standardized case definition for COVID-19 and added it to the list of nationally notifiable conditions. Position statement, Interim-20-ID-02, superseded Interim-20-ID-01 by clarifying criteria for case ascertainment and classification, updating probable case classifications, and adding suspect case classifications. Position statement 21-ID-01, again updated the standardized surveillance case definition.

These online guidelines systematically review the evidence related to 15 COVID-19 diagnostic testing options and grade recommendations as strong or conditional. Related guidelines focus on infection prevention and treatment and management.

This video demonstrates the process of collecting oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs for novel coronavirus testing.

This video demonstrates how to collect a nasopharyngeal specimen for COVID-19 laboratory testing.