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
. 2022 Jul 27:10:891503.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.891503. eCollection 2022.

Factors and optimizations of healthcare workers' perception in alternative care facilities

Hao Wang  1   2 , Peng Luo  1   2 , Yimeng Wu  3 , Xianqi Zeng  1   2
Affiliations

Factors and optimizations of healthcare workers' perception in alternative care facilities

Hao Wang et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Diverse measures have been carried out worldwide to establish Alternative Care Facilities (ACFs) for different ends, such as receiving, curing or isolating patients, aiming to cope with tremendous shock in the urban medical system during the early passage of the COVID-19 epidemic. Healthcare workers always felt anxious and stressed during multiple major public health emergencies in medical facilities. Some active measures to improve healthcare workers' perceptions, such as temporary training, workflow improvement, and supplementary facilities, were proved insufficient in several past public health emergencies. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the contributing factors of the healthcare workers' perceptions of the ACFs in this pandemic, which can help find an innovative path to ensure their health, well-being and work efficiency.

Method: This paper conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with the world's first batch of healthcare workers who have worked in ACFs through a qualitative study based on Grounded Theory. The healthcare workers interviewed from Heilongjiang, Shandong, Fujian, and Hubei provinces, have worked in one of the four different ACFs built in Wuhan. The results are obtained through the three-level codes and analyses of the interview recordings.

Results: The factors affecting the perception of healthcare workers in ACFs during the epidemic situation can be summarized into five major categories: individual characteristics, organization management, facilities and equipment, space design, and internal environment. The five major categories affecting the composition of perception can be further divided into endogenous and exogenous factors, which jointly affect the perception of healthcare workers in ACFs. Among them, individual characteristics belong to endogenous factors, which are the primary conditions, while other categories belong to exogenous factors, which are the decisive conditions.

Conclusion: This paper clarifies factors affecting the perception of healthcare workers in ACFs and analyzes the mechanism of each factor. It is posited that the passive strategies are a promising solution to protect healthcare workers' health, improve their work efficiency, and help reduce the operation stress of ACFs. We should train multidisciplinary professionals for future healthcare and enhance collaborations between healthcare workers and engineers. To sum up, this paper broadens new horizons for future research on the optimization of ACFs and finds new paths for alleviating healthcare workers' adverse perceptions of ACFs.

Keywords: active and passive strategies; alternative care facility (ACF); grounded theory; healthcare workers' perception; nurse-engineer partnership.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Grounded theory research process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Interaction mechanism between main categories.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Perception models of healthcare workers in ACFs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Hui DS, I Azhar E, Madani TA, Ntoumi F, Kock R, Dar O, et al. . The continuing 2019-nCoV epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health—The latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Int J Infect Dis. (2020) 91:264–66. 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.01.009 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gaofeng Yin H, Wang J, Nicholas S, Maitland E. The COVID-19 Run on medical resources in Wuhan China: causes, consequences and lessons healthcare. MDPI. (2021) 9:1362. 10.3390/healthcare9101362 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mahendradhata NiL Y, Tirtabayu Hasri E, Arifi MD, Montesori Siahaan RG, Solikha DA, Ali PB. The capacity of the Indonesian healthcare system to respond to COVID-19. Front Public Health. (2021) 9:887. 10.3389/fpubh.2021.649819 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Van Beusekom M. Doctors: COVID-19 pushing Italian ICUs toward collapse. Center for Infectious Disease Research Policy (2020). Available online at https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/03/doctors-covid-19-pus.... (accessed on May 12, 2022).
    1. Verhagen MD, Brazel DM, Dowd JP, Kashnitsky I, Mills MC. Mapping hospital demand: demographics, spatial variation, and the risk of “hospital deserts” during COVID-19 in England and Wales OSF Preprints. (2020). - PMC - PubMed

Publication types