Effectiveness of the contingency plan of the internal inflammatory disease unit before Covid-19 infection

Abstract

Background: Decision making in hospitals, and especially in their own healthcare services, is hardly referenced in the literature. During the pandemic period, healthcare services have put in place contingency plans to minimize the consequences of the coronavirus on professionals and patients. However, the deployment of contingency plans and results are hardly shared, depriving other services of references to refute, compare or emulate the aforementioned plans. The objective of this work was the description of the implementation and evaluation of Contingency Plans in the Covid-19 pandemic in a unit of inflammatory bowel disease of a Digestive Service in the Sanitary Area of Pontevedra and O Salnés. Methods: A team of managers and professionals adapted the 10 measures recommended by Deloitte to face a pandemic to the healthcare environment. The measures were then formulated as a checklist. From the Plan-DoCheck-Act improvement cycle, they were grouped into categories: risk management, organizational management and decision-making. Finally, an external team carried out a qualitative evaluation of the implementation of the contingency plan carried out. Results: The Intestinal Inflammatory Disease Unit of the Digestive Service has obtained an assessment of compliance with the 10 recommended measures to confidently face a pandemic. Conclusions: Sharing the deployment of the contingency plan and its results is useful to identify good practices. This article shows a method to evaluate decision-making in pandemic situations. The outcomes faces the The Intestinal Inflammatory Disease Unit in an excelent position.