ArticleBMC medicine2020
Adapting hospital capacity to meet changing demands during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in BMC medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 107 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
107 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 229 citations in OpenAlex.
- Measuring hospital care resilience: a systematic literature review.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026Pooled it
- Strategies to strengthen elective surgery systems during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: systematic review and framework development.The British journal of surgery · 2024Pooled it
- Using Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions to Assess Primary Health Care Performance during Disasters: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- A systematic review: the dimensions to evaluate health care performance and an implication during the pandemic.BMC health services research · 2022Pooled it
- Impact on all-cause mortality of a case prediction and prevention intervention designed to reduce secondary care utilisation: findings from a randomised controlled trial.Emergency medicine journal : EMJ · 2023Trial
- Costs of hospital stays in Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparative analysis between cancer and non-cancer patients.BMC health services research · 2026Observational
- From patient voices to policy: Data analytics reveals patterns in Ontario's hospital feedback.PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- Quantifying selection bias due to unobserved patients in pharmacoepidemiologic studies of severe COVID-19 cohorts.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Acupressure on Sleep Quality and Daytime Sleepiness of Surgical Nurses: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Sham-Controlled Tria.Florence Nightingale journal of nursing · 2025Article
- Cost-Effectiveness of Day Surgery With Remote Patient Monitoring for Acute Cholecystitis: Economic Modeling Study.JMIR perioperative medicine · 2025Article
- An Optimization-Based Framework to Dynamically Schedule Hospital Beds in a Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Stage-specific harm in early-stage hospitals in South Korea: a retrospective analysis using the healthcare complaints analysis tool.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Sustained excess all-cause mortality post COVID-19 in 21 countries: an ecological investigation.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- National survey evaluating the introduction of new and alternative staffing models in intensive care (SEISMIC-R) in the UK.BMJ open · 2025Observational
- Predicting COVID-19 Patient Disposition Using the National Early Warning Score 2: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Cureus · 2025Article
- 'That's kind of under my work blanket'-redeployment experiences of children's hospital staff during the covid-19 pandemic: a qualitative interview study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Elucidating insights on how care was prioritized, adapted, and missed during and post pandemic.PloS one · 2025Article
- Examining the COVID-19 impact on cancer surgery in Ireland using three national data sources.Global epidemiology · 2024Article
- Predicting individual patient and hospital-level discharge using machine learning.Communications medicine · 2024Article
- Article
47 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTo calculate hospital surge capacity, achieved via hospital provision interventions implemented for the emergency treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other patients through March to May 2020; to evaluate the conditions for admitting patients for elective surgery under varying admission levels of COVID-19 patients.
methodsWe analysed National Health Service (NHS) datasets and literature reviews to estimate hospital care capacity before the pandemic (pre-pandemic baseline) and to quantify the impact of interventions (cancellation of elective surgery, field hospitals, use of private hospitals, deployment of former medical staff and deployment of newly qualified medical staff) for treatment of adult COVID-19 patients, focusing on general and acute (G&A) and critical care (CC) beds, staff and ventilators.
resultsNHS England would not have had sufficient capacity to treat all COVID-19 and other patients in March and April 2020 without the hospital provision interventions, which alleviated significant shortfalls in CC nurses, CC and G&A beds and CC junior doctors. All elective surgery can be conducted at normal pre-pandemic levels provided the other interventions are sustained, but only if the daily number of COVID-19 patients occupying CC beds is not greater than 1550 in the whole of England. If the other interventions are not maintained, then elective surgery can only be conducted if the number of COVID-19 patients occupying CC beds is not greater than 320. However, there is greater national capacity to treat G&A patients: without interventions, it takes almost 10,000 G&A COVID-19 patients before any G&A elective patients would be unable to be accommodated.
conclusionsUnless COVID-19 hospitalisations drop to low levels, there is a continued need to enhance critical care capacity in England with field hospitals, use of private hospitals or deployment of former and newly qualified medical staff to allow some or all elective surgery to take place.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.