Infection control measures of a Taiwanese hospital to confront the COVID‐19 pandemic

• Main Authors: Ya‐Ting Chang, Chun‐Yu Lin, Ming‐Ju Tsai, Ching‐Tzu Hung, Chia‐Wen Hsu, Po‐Liang Lu, Ming‐Feng Hou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2020-05-01
• Series: Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: COVID‐19; infection control; novel coronavirus; SARS‐CoV‐2; Taiwan
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/kjm2.12228

Abstract The World Health Organization announced the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) outbreak a pandemic on 12 March 2020. Although being in proximity to China, the original epicenter of the COVID‐19 outbreak, Taiwan has maintained a low number of COVID‐19 cases despite its close social ties and heavy traffic between Taiwan and China. Containment strategies executed by the Taiwanese government have attracted global attention. Similarly, in‐hospital settings, high alertness and swift responses to the changing outbreak situation are necessary to ensure hospital staff members' safety so they can continue to save patients' lives. Herein, we present infection control measures that can be adopted in hospital settings that were executed in a Taiwanese hospital to confront the COVID‐19 pandemic, including emergency preparedness and responses from the hospital administration, education, surveillance, patient flow arrangement, the partition of hospital zones, and the prevention of a systemic shutdown by using the “divided cabin, divided flow” strategy. The measures implemented by a Taiwan hospital during the COVID‐19 pandemic may not be universally applicable in every hospital. Nonetheless, the presented infection control methods have been practically executed and can be referenced or modified to fit each hospital's unique condition.