key: cord-1049153-bfftrrss
authors: Popescu, Saskia
title: Hospital biopreparedness in the Looming Presence of SARS‐CoV‐2/COVID‐19
date: 2020-03-09
journal: Health Sci Rep
DOI: 10.1002/hsr2.149
sha: fafeffb0d38a9c4b5316f8c28b10f12c156dee7f
doc_id: 1049153
cord_uid: bfftrrss

nan

As quarantines and travel bans are put into place-frustrating public health experts-there is an increasing need to address the hospital dynamics of response to such biological events.

The recent analysis of 138 hospitalized patients in Wuhan, China, and their clinical characteristics, has given credence to stronger investments into hospital biopreparedness and overall infection prevention efforts. 1 Within this analysis, researchers found two pieces that are particularly relevant to healthcare preparedness: first, that 26% of patients required admission to an intensive care unit, and second, that 41% of cases were related to healthcare transmission.

Patients requiring medical care in an intensive care unit inherently burden the system more, both in terms of supplies in personnel, but also because they typically have greater lengths of stay. The volume of healthcare-associated cases is an indicator of infection prevention breakdowns, which points to the potential for hospitals to further spread the disease. This is not a unique finding, however, and similar situations have Healthcare investment in biopreparedness is often intermittent and frequently provided only in the face of an outbreak or biological event. This current outbreak should be seen as an opportunity to ensure those efforts are being supported and reinforced by leadership. Hospital leaders often note that investment in prevention and response efforts for seemingly improbable biological events is unlikely due to competing interests. 6 Healthcare biopreparedness goes beyond just ensuring we have enough PPE, but also requires instilling the infection prevention foundation that patient and employee safety precariously rests upon. The future should see international efforts to strengthen the critical healthcare and public health infrastructure across the world, as these vulnerabilities are systemic and deserve the highest attention.

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