Rapid hospital readiness checklist: Interim Guidance

Overview

Access the tool:

Use and content

Countries can use this checklist of hospital governance, structures, plans and protocols to rapidly determine the current capacities of hospitals to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify gaps and major areas that require investment and action for the development of hospital readiness improvement plans. The tool can be used periodically to monitor hospital emergency operational readiness capacity development. Content areas include:

• Leadership and incident management system
• Coordination and communication
• Surveillance and information management • Risk communication and community engagement
• Administration, finance and business continuity
• Human resources
• Surge capacity
• Continuity of essential support services
• Patient management
• Occupational health, mental health and psychosocial support for health care workers
• Rapid identification and diagnosis
• Infection prevention and control

Target audiences

Primary

• Hospital managers

Other

• National and subnational health authorities
• National and subnational COVID-19 incident management teams
• Facility managers

Key questions this module helps to answer

• Do facilities have the necessary arrangements and backup arrangements in place and the functioning capacity to respond to COVID-19 (including safe and quality care of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients and the continued provision of safe and essential public health functions)?
• Which recommended actions need to be given priority and investment to make the facility fully functional?
• What are the ‘to do’ priority actions in case of surge?

When to use

Before outbreak/epidemic, in the early stages of outbreak/epidemic, and during epidemic/pandemic