Associations between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Hospital Infrastructure Adaptation and Planning—A Scoping Review

Costase Ndayishimiye, Christoph Sowada, Patrycja Dyjach, Agnieszka Stasiak, John Middleton, Henrique Lopes and Katarzyna Dubas-Jakóbczyk
Additional contact information
Costase Ndayishimiye: Europubhealth, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-008 Krakow, Poland
Christoph Sowada: Health Economics and Social Security Department, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-008 Krakow, Poland
Patrycja Dyjach: Health Care Management, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-008 Krakow, Poland
Agnieszka Stasiak: Health Care Management, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-008 Krakow, Poland
John Middleton: Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), 1150 Brussels, Belgium
Henrique Lopes: Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), 1150 Brussels, Belgium
Katarzyna Dubas-Jakóbczyk: Health Economics and Social Security Department, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-008 Krakow, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 13, 1-22

Abstract: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on the hospital sector around the world. It has shown the importance of preparing and planning in the future for an outbreak that overwhelms every aspect of a hospital on a rapidly expanding scale. We conducted a scoping review to identify, map, and systemize existing knowledge about the relationships between COVID-19 and hospital infrastructure adaptation and capacity planning worldwide. We searched the Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed and hand-searched gray papers published in English between December 2019 and December 2021. A total of 106 papers were included: 102 empirical studies and four technical reports. Empirical studies entailed five reviews, 40 studies focusing on hospital infrastructure adaptation and planning during the pandemics, and 57 studies on modeling the hospital capacity needed, measured mostly by the number of beds. The majority of studies were conducted in high-income countries and published within the first year of the pandemic. The strategies adopted by hospitals can be classified into short-term (repurposing medical and non-medical buildings, remote adjustments, and establishment of de novo structures) and long-term (architectural and engineering modifications, hospital networks, and digital approaches). More research is needed, focusing on specific strategies and the quality assessment of the evidence.

Keywords: hospital infrastructure; repurposing; adaptation; planning; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; health emergency; digital health; healthcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8195/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8195/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:13:p:8195-:d:855715

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().