ArticleAfrican journal of primary health care & family medicine2021
A COVID-19 field hospital in a conference centre - The Cape Town, South Africa experience.
Article in African journal of primary health care & family medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Emergency Medicine in South Africa: Progress, challenges, and future directions from a qualitative inquiry.African journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence · 2026Article
- Enhancing Consultation Efficiency Through Medical Informatics: A Scalable Field Clinic Model for the Pandemic Response in Taiwan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Regulatory technology arrangements for hospital bed access during the COVID-19 pandemic: scope review.Cadernos de saude publica · 2025Article
- 'I am afraid the news is not good' - Breaking bad news in the time of COVID: Experiences from a field hospital.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2024Article
- Sociodemographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics and risk factors for mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at alternate care site: a Latin American experience.Annals of medicine · 2023Article
- [Castellón Field Hospital: comprehensive analysis of its use during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.]Revista espanola de salud publica · 2023Observational
- Evaluating Efficacy of a COVID-19 Alternative Care Site Preparedness Assessment Tool for Catastrophic Healthcare Surge Capacity during Pandemic Response.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe coronavirus pandemic has put extreme pressure on health care services in South Africa.
aimTo describe the design, patients and outcomes of a field hospital during the first wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
settingThe Cape Town International Convention Centre was the first location in Cape Town to be commissioned as a field hospital that would serve as an intermediate care bed facility.
methodsThis was a retrospective descriptive study of patients admitted to this facility between 8th June 2020 and 14th August 2020 using deidentified data extracted from patient records.
resultsThere were 1502 patients admitted, 56.4% female, with a mean age of 58.6 years (standard deviation [s.d.]: 14.2). The majority of patients (82.9%) had at least one comorbidity, whilst 15.4% had three or more. Nearly 80.0% (79.8%) of patients required oxygen and 63.5% received steroids, and only 5.7% of patients were required to be transferred for escalation of care. The mean length of stay was 6 days (s.d.: 4.8) with an overall mortality of 5.7%.
conclusionThis study highlights the role of a field hospital in providing surge capacity. Its use halved the predicted duration of stay at acute care hospitals, allowing them the capacity to manage more unstable and critical patients. Adaptability and responsivity as well as adequate referral platforms proved to be crucial. Daily communication with the whole health care service platform was a critical success factor. This study provides information to assist future health planning and strategy development in the current pandemic and future disease outbreaks.
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