Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Apr 20;35(15):e152.
doi: 10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e152.

A Brief Telephone Severity Scoring System and Therapeutic Living Centers Solved Acute Hospital-Bed Shortage during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Daegu, Korea

Shin Woo Kim  1 , Kyeong Soo Lee  2 , Keonyeop Kim  3 , Jung Jeung Lee  4 , Jong Yeon Kim  5 ; Daegu Medical Association
Affiliations

A Brief Telephone Severity Scoring System and Therapeutic Living Centers Solved Acute Hospital-Bed Shortage during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Daegu, Korea

Shin Woo Kim et al. J Korean Med Sci. .

Abstract

With the epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2, the number of infected patients was rapidly increasing in Daegu, Korea. With a maximum of 741 new patients per day in the city as of February 29, 2020, hospital-bed shortage was a great challenge to the local healthcare system. We developed and applied a remote brief severity scoring system, administered by telephone for assigning priority for hospitalization and arranging for facility isolation ("therapeutic living centers") for the patients starting on February 29, 2020. Fifteen centers were operated for the 3,033 admissions to the COVID-19 therapeutic living centers. Only 81 cases (2.67%) were transferred to hospitals after facility isolation. We think that this brief severity scoring system for COVID-19 worked safely to solve the hospital-bed shortage. Telephone scoring of the severity of disease and therapeutic living centers could be very useful in overcoming the shortage of hospital-beds that occurs during outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Keywords: Brief Severity Scoring System; COVID-19; Facility Isolation; Telephone; Therapeutic Living Center.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Trend of daily and cumulative COVID-19 confirmed patients in Daegu, patients waiting for hospitalization or facility isolation or home isolation and admission to the facility isolation (From 2/18/2020 to 3/29/2020).
COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Munster VJ, Koopmans M, van Doremalen N, van Riel D, de Wit E. A novel coronavirus emerging in China - Key questions for impact assessment. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):692–694. - PubMed
    1. Holshue ML, DeBolt C, Lindquist S, Lofy KH, Wiesman J, Bruce H, et al. First case of 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(10):929–936. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Emergency Response Epidemiology Team. The epidemiological characteristics of an outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) in China. Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi. 2020;41(2):145–151. - PubMed
    1. Yang X, Yu Y, Xu J, Shu H, Xia J, Liu H, et al. Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study. Lancet Respir Med. 2020 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Heymann DL, Shindo N WHO Scientific and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards. COVID-19: what is next for public health? Lancet. 2020;395(10224):542–545. - PMC - PubMed