Italy is one of the first countries making adjustments to its hospitals to accommodate a COVID-19 world, as outpatient clinics and non-emergency services reopen — with WHO supporting the process.
An Italian-speaking hospital readiness WHO consultant visited over 20 facilities in Bologna and in the Apulia Region in southern Italy over 2 months, advising them on how to create alternative routes through hospitals for confirmed COVID-19 patients and for those suspected of having the virus, and on how to provide better spacing in waiting areas and improve ventilation.
She works alongside engineers, IPC teams and medical directors to gain a clear understanding of the needs of each hospital. Hospitals now needed to think in terms of creating medium- and low-risk spaces as opposed to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards, sometimes recommending moving whole wards from one part of a building to another to increase capacity and to improve the flow of patients through the hospital.
WHO is taking this opportunity to rethink and build something sustainable and fit for purpose that can also be adapted to treat new diseases and emergencies, to avoid rebuilding in the future. The solutions the team finds can then be applied to other countries according to the COVID-19 phase they are in.