Panayiotou Andreas, Rafailidis Vasileios, Puttick Thomas, Satchithananda Keshthra, Gray Adam, Sidhu Paul S
Department of Radiology, King's College Hospital, London, UK.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
Br J Radiol. 2020 Dec 1;93(1116):20201034. doi: 10.1259/bjr.20201034. Epub 2020 Oct 28.
The pandemic of COVID-19 presented an enormous challenge to the medical world in terms of diagnosis, treatment and health-care management as well as service organisation and provision. This novel virus and its spread affected every aspect of modern medical practice, ranging from investigating transmission of this new pathogen, antigen testing of symptomatic patients, imaging, assessing different treatment regimens and the production of a new vaccine. Imaging played a crucial role in the diagnosis of COVID-19-related lung disease, with plain radiography and CT being the main diagnostic modalities, with ultrasound a useful bedside imaging tool. The accurate and early diagnosis of the disease was not the only issue faced by Radiology Departments across the world; prevention of nosocomial infection, creating capacity with elective imaging suspension, management and protection of the workforce being few of the numerous challenges. The purpose of this manuscript is to present the steps that the Radiology Department of a large urban tertiary facility with a local vulnerable population, undertook to adapt the imaging service and structure, both initially escalating and then de-escalating a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A step-by-step management strategy, effective and sustained staff deployment, imaging management are presented and discussed, to provide a guide for managing a major incident in a radiology department.
2019年冠状病毒病疫情在诊断、治疗、医疗保健管理以及服务组织与提供等方面给医学界带来了巨大挑战。这种新型病毒及其传播影响了现代医疗实践的方方面面，从调查这种新病原体的传播、对有症状患者进行抗原检测、成像、评估不同治疗方案到新型疫苗的生产。成像在2019年冠状病毒病相关肺部疾病的诊断中发挥了关键作用，X线平片和CT是主要诊断方式，超声是一种有用的床旁成像工具。疾病的准确早期诊断并非世界各地放射科面临的唯一问题；预防医院感染、通过暂停择期成像来创造能力、管理和保护工作人员是众多挑战中的一部分。本手稿的目的是介绍一家拥有当地弱势群体的大型城市三级医疗机构的放射科为适应成像服务和结构所采取的步骤，最初是加强应对，然后是减弱应对2019年冠状病毒病疫情的措施。本文介绍并讨论了逐步管理策略、有效且持续的人员部署、成像管理，以为放射科管理重大事件提供指导。
