Is IR an Essential Hospital Service? Analysis of Trauma Procedures at a Level 1 Centre During the First Wave of COVID-19
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Is IR an Essential Hospital Service? Analysis of Trauma Procedures at a Level 1 Centre During the First Wave of COVID19 Pandemic in Australia Warren Clements1,2,3 Mark C. Fitzgerald3,4
Callum Narita1 • Joseph Mathew3,4 1,2,3 • Gerard S. Goh
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Dinesh Varma1,2,3
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Received: 27 August 2020 / Accepted: 19 September 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature and the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) 2020
To the editor The World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) a global pandemic on 12 March 2020 [1]. This led to limitation of non-essential hospital services and in some circumstances, recruitment of specialty services into front-line critical care services [2]. Many interventional radiologists (IRs) modified their service to provide alternative procedures to patients affected by COVID-19 but stressed the importance of protecting IR services for their hospital [3]. Like other countries, Australia adopted early strict social distancing measures. Local government declared a state of emergency on 16 March 2020 and recommended that & Warren Clements [email protected] Callum Narita [email protected] Joseph Mathew [email protected] Dinesh Varma [email protected] Mark C. Fitzgerald [email protected] Gerard S. Goh [email protected] 1
Department of Radiology, Alfred Health, 55 Commercial Road, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia
2
Department of Surgery, Monash University Central Clinical School, Melbourne, Australia
3
National Trauma Research Institute, Monash University Central Clinical School, Melbourne, Australia
4
Department of Trauma, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Australia
people stay at home unless necessary [1]. Many businesses closed or were mandated to work from home. Schools also transitioned to online learning. There was an associated decrease in road traffic [4]. On 31 May 2020, the state government lifted initial restrictions on social distancing. Melbourne has a population of approximately 5 million. As a level 1 trauma centre, the Alfred Hospital is the largest of 2 trauma centres in the state. This study aimed to quantify the number and acuity of IR procedures performed on trauma patients during the first wave. Local institutional review board approval was obtained. The study covered the period from declaration of a state of emergency on 16 March 2020 to the lifting of social restrictions on 31 May 2020, also known as the ‘‘first wave’’. The hospital Radiology Information System and the Alfred trauma database were searched for trauma inpatients who received an IR procedure during the above period. The same data were then gathered for the corresponding dates in 2019 (16 March 2019–31 May 2019) for direct comparison. During the first wave, there were 40 procedures performed on 28 trauma patients (Fig. 1) with a mean age of 53.7 ± 19.2 years, of which 75% were male, and the median ISS was 29 (range 8–50). This compares with 32 procedures during the same dates in 2019 on
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