Adaptability and responsiveness: keys to operational measures in a regional hospital radiology department during the current COVID-19 pandemic

Mukherjee, Pratik; Lim, Tze Chwan; Chawla, Ashish; Chou, Hong; Peh, Wilfred C G

The rapid and mostly uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic over the past 4 months has overwhelmed many healthcare systems worldwide. In Singapore, while our public healthcare institutions were considered well prepared due to our prior experience with the SARS outbreak, there was an unexpected surge of infected patients over the recent 2 months to deal with. We describe our radiology department’s experience in modifying operational practices and implementing strict infection control measures aimed at minimizing disease transmission and mitigating the potential impact of possible staff infection. From the perspective of serving a medium-sized regional hospital and limited by physical and manpower constraints, our radiology department had to adapt quickly and modify our initial responses and practices as the disease scenario changed. We have also enumerated some guidelines for planning future radiology departments.