Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Georgios Peros georgios. Background: With the rapid global spread of the acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, urgent health-care measures have been implemented. We describe the organizational process in setting up a coronavirus disease triage unit in a Swiss tertiary care hospital. Methods: Our triage unit was set-up outside of the main hospital building and consists of three areas: 1.
Pre-triage, 2. Triage, and 3. Triage plus. The Pre-triage check-points identify any potential COVIDinfected patients and re-direct them to the main Triage area where trained medical staff screen which patients undergo diagnostic testing. If testing is indicated, nasopharyngeal swabs are performed. If patients require further investigations, they are referred to Triage plus. At this stage, patients are then discharged home after additional testing or admitted to the hospital for management.
Observations: A total of patients were screened between 10 March and 12 April at our Triage unit. Of these, 8. The mean age for all patients was Distinguishing between genders, mean age for females was Conclusion: Our triage unit was set-up as part of a large-scale restructuring process. Current challenges include low sensitivity for test results as well as limited staff and resources. We hope that our experience will help other health care institutions develop similar triage systems.
The novel coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan, China in December [ 1 , 2 ], also known as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 SARS-CoV-2 , has caused a global impact on health, economy, and politics in the last few months.
The clinical syndrome from the virus, now termed coronavirus disease COVID , can range from mild respiratory symptoms and fever in mild cases, to acute respiratory distress syndrome ARDS and death in severe cases [ 2 , 3 ]. Switzerland currently has one of the highest incidence of COVID [ 6 , 7 ] worldwide among affected countries, but also one of the lowest mortalities, with a case fatality ratio of approximately 0.
