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Review
. 2021 Oct 31;18(21):11478.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph182111478.

Flexibility during the COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Healthcare Facility Assessment Tools for Resilient Evaluation

Andrea Brambilla  1   2 , Tian-Zhi Sun  1 , Waleed Elshazly  3 , Ahmed Ghazy  3 , Paul Barach  1   4   5 , Göran Lindahl  1   2 , Stefano Capolongo  1
Affiliations
Review

Flexibility during the COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Healthcare Facility Assessment Tools for Resilient Evaluation

Andrea Brambilla et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Healthcare facilities are facing huge challenges due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Around the world, national healthcare contingency plans have struggled to cope with the population health impact of COVID-19, with healthcare facilities and critical care systems buckling under the extraordinary pressures. COVID-19 has starkly highlighted the lack of reliable operational tools for assessing the level sof flexibility of a hospital building to support strategic and agile decision making. The aim of this study was to modify, improve and test an existing assessment tool for evaluating hospital facilities flexibility and resilience. We followed a five-step process for collecting data by (i) doing a literature review about flexibility principles and strategies, (ii) reviewing healthcare design guidelines, (iii) examining international healthcare facilities case studies, (iv) conducting a critical review and optimization of the existing tool, and (v) assessing the usability of the evaluation tool. The new version of the OFAT framework (Optimized Flexibility Assessment Tool) is composed of nine evaluation parameters and subdivided into measurable variables with scores ranging from 0 to 10. The pilot testing of case studies enabled the assessment and verification the OFAT validity and reliability in support of decision makers in addressing flexibility of hospital design and/or operations. Healthcare buildings need to be designed and built based on principles of flexibility to accommodate current healthcare operations, adapting to time-sensitive physical transformations and responding to contemporary and future public health emergencies.

Keywords: COVID-19; assessment tool; evaluation; flexibility; healthcare facilities; hospitals.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart profile of the research methodology.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flow diagram of literature search.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Histogram with percentage of evaluation parameters used. The horizontal x-axis lists the parameters included in the evaluation tool while on the vertical y-axes the fulfillment of each parameter based on the case studies analyzed is seen. The figure shows that some parameters are very common while others are rarer to be found in the selected case studies.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of application of evaluation parameters of original (OBAT) and optimized assessment tools (OFAT).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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