Department of Cancer and Genomics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Department of Vascular Surgery, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, Coventry, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 30;15(12):e0243299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243299. eCollection 2020.
The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound impact on global healthcare. Shortages in staff, operating theatre space and intensive care beds has led to a significant reduction in the provision of surgical care. Even vascular surgery, often insulated from resource scarcity due to its status as an urgent specialty, has limited capacity due to the pandemic. Furthermore, many vascular surgical patients are elderly with multiple comorbidities putting them at increased risk of COVID-19 and its complications. There is an urgent need to investigate the impact on patients presenting to vascular surgeons during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COvid-19 Vascular sERvice (COVER) study has been designed to investigate the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vascular surgery, at both service provision and individual patient level. COVER is running as a collaborative study through the Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN), an independent, international vascular research collaborative with the support of numerous national and international organisations). The study has 3 'Tiers': Tier 1 is a survey of vascular surgeons to capture longitudinal changes to the provision of vascular services within their hospital; Tier 2 captures data on vascular and endovascular procedures performed during the pandemic; and Tier 3 will capture any deviations to patient management strategies from pre-pandemic best practice. Data submission and collection will be electronic using online survey tools (Tier 1: SurveyMonkey® for service provision data) and encrypted data capture forms (Tiers 2 and 3: REDCap® for patient level data). Tier 1 data will undergo real-time serial analysis to determine longitudinal changes in practice, with country-specific analyses also performed. The analysis of Tier 2 and Tier 3 data will occur on completion of the study as per the pre-specified statistical analysis plan.
新型冠状病毒病 2019（COVID-19）大流行正在对全球医疗保健产生深远影响。由于工作人员、手术室空间和重症监护床位短缺，外科护理的提供大幅减少。即使是血管外科，由于其作为紧急专科的地位，通常不受资源短缺的影响，但由于大流行，其能力也受到限制。此外，许多血管外科患者年龄较大，合并多种疾病，使他们感染 COVID-19 及其并发症的风险增加。迫切需要调查 COVID-19 大流行期间向血管外科医生就诊的患者的影响。
为了调查 COVID-19 大流行对血管外科服务提供和个体患者层面的全球影响，已经设计了 COvid-19 血管服务（COVER）研究。COVER 作为一个通过血管和内脏血管研究网络（VERN）运行的合作研究，该网络是一个独立的国际血管研究合作组织，得到了众多国家和国际组织的支持。该研究有 3 个“层次”：第 1 层是对血管外科医生进行调查，以捕捉其医院内血管服务提供的纵向变化；第 2 层收集大流行期间进行的血管和内脏血管手术数据；第 3 层将捕获任何偏离预大流行最佳实践的患者管理策略。数据提交和收集将使用在线调查工具（第 1 层：SurveyMonkey®用于服务提供数据）和加密数据捕获表格（第 2 层和第 3 层：REDCap®用于患者水平数据）进行电子方式。第 1 层数据将进行实时连续分析，以确定实践中的纵向变化，并按国家进行特定分析。第 2 层和第 3 层数据的分析将在完成研究后按照预先指定的统计分析计划进行。
