Hospital Resource Management on Mechanical Ventilator Allocation During The COVID-19 Pandemic: An Experience from a Middle Income Country Referral Center

 

The study entitled: “Hospital Resource Management on Mechanical Ventilator Allocation During The COVID-19 Pandemic: An Experience from a Middle Income Country Referral Center” or the “Mech Vent Project” explores how the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelms low-income or middle-income countries (LMIC) health systems in its resources such as mechanical ventilators, non-invasive ventilation devices, and and high flow oxygen devices.

Early evidence showed that even though the hospitals in developed countries (such as Italy) have expanded critical care capacity as much as possible, there simply were not enough ventilators for all patients who needed them. Contributing to the scarcity is the prolonged intubation many of these patients require as they recover from pneumonia – often 15-20 days of mechanical ventilation, with several hours spent in the prone position, with slow weaning.

ICU management of these patients were discussed ethically. The study focuses on Philippine General Hospital (PGH), a Covid-19 referral center and the largest government tertiary hospital capable of handling pulmonary cases. From this, the study aims to determine hospital resilience in terms of mechanical ventilators, non invasive ventilation devices and high flow oxygen device allocation during this Covid -19 pandemic from the perspective of an LMIC government hospital.

This study can also serve as a baseline analysis of hospital system response to crisis handling and mitigation and its resilience to address logistic, manpower,
technical, and ethical challenges. Details of study will be the springboard to future hospital resilience in terms of patients requiring ventilatory support and crisis management plans locally and internationally.

This study will also provide evidence to policies and legislations related to crisis preparedness in handling and managing challenges in flu pandemics.