Superusers of Self-Paced Online Learning on OpenWHO.

INTRODUCTION: OpenWHO provides open-access, online, free and real-time learning responses to health emergencies, which includes capacitating healthcare providers, first liners, medical students and even the general public. During the pandemic and to date, an additional 40 courses for COVID-19 response have led to a massive increase in the number of learners and a change in user's trends. This paper presents initial findings on enrollment trends, use and completion rates of health emergency courses offered on OpenWHO. METHODS: The enrolment data statistics were drawn from OpenWHO's built-in reporting system, which tracks learners' enrolments, completion rates, demographics and other key course-related data, This information was collected from the beginning of the OpenWHO launch in 2017 up until October 2021. RESULTS: Average course completion rate on OpenWHO including all courses and languages was equal to 45.9%. Nearly half (46.4%) of all OpenWHO learners have enrolled in at least 2 courses and 71 000 superusers have completed at least 10 courses on the platform. CONCLUSION: WHO's learning platform during the pandemic registered record high completion rates and repeat learners enrollment. This highlights the massive impact of the OpenWHO online learning platform for health emergencies and the tangible knowledge transfer and access to health literacy.

Changes in Users Trends Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic on WHO's Online Learning Platform.

OpenWHO provides open access, online, free and real time learning responses to health emergencies. Before the pandemic, courses on 18 diseases were provided. The increase to 38 courses in response to COVID-19 have led to a massive increase in the number of new learners. As a result, the COVID-19 pandemic affected learners' trends. This paper presents initial findings of changes perceived in the use and user groups' attendance to the World Health Organization's (WHO) health emergency learning platform OpenWHO. Enrolment statistics were based on data collected in December 2019 and March 2021. A descriptive analysis was conducted to explore changes in the usage pattern of the platform. Several user characteristics shifted between before and during the pandemic. More women, younger and older learners joined the learning during the pandemic. Public health education leaned toward a more equitable reach including previously underrepresented groups.

The J-IDEA Pandemic Planner: A Framework for Implementing Hospital Provision Interventions During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Planning for extreme surges in demand for hospital care of patients requiring urgent life-saving treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), while retaining capacity for other emergency conditions, is one of the most challenging tasks faced by health care providers and policymakers during the pandemic. Health systems must be well-prepared to cope with large and sudden changes in demand by implementing interventions to ensure adequate access to care. We developed the first planning tool for the COVID-19 pandemic to account for how hospital provision interventions (such as cancelling elective surgery, setting up field hospitals, or hiring retired staff) will affect the capacity of hospitals to provide life-saving care. METHODS: We conducted a review of interventions implemented or considered in 12 European countries in March to April 2020, an evaluation of their impact on capacity, and a review of key parameters in the care of COVID-19 patients. This information was used to develop a planner capable of estimating the impact of specific interventions on doctors, nurses, beds, and respiratory support equipment. We applied this to a scenario-based case study of 1 intervention, the set-up of field hospitals in England, under varying levels of COVID-19 patients. RESULTS: The Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics pandemic planner is a hospital planning tool that allows hospital administrators, policymakers, and other decision-makers to calculate the amount of capacity in terms of beds, staff, and crucial medical equipment obtained by implementing the interventions. Flexible assumptions on baseline capacity, the number of hospitalizations, staff-to-beds ratios, and staff absences due to COVID-19 make the planner adaptable to multiple settings. The results of the case study show that while field hospitals alleviate the burden on the number of beds available, this intervention is futile unless the deficit of critical care nurses is addressed first. DISCUSSION: The tool supports decision-makers in delivering a fast and effective response to the pandemic. The unique contribution of the planner is that it allows users to compare the impact of interventions that change some or all inputs.

Adapting hospital capacity to meet changing demands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: To calculate hospital surge capacity, achieved via hospital provision interventions implemented for the emergency treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other patients through March to May 2020; to evaluate the conditions for admitting patients for elective surgery under varying admission levels of COVID-19 patients. METHODS: We analysed National Health Service (NHS) datasets and literature reviews to estimate hospital care capacity before the pandemic (pre-pandemic baseline) and to quantify the impact of interventions (cancellation of elective surgery, field hospitals, use of private hospitals, deployment of former medical staff and deployment of newly qualified medical staff) for treatment of adult COVID-19 patients, focusing on general and acute (G&A) and critical care (CC) beds, staff and ventilators. RESULTS: NHS England would not have had sufficient capacity to treat all COVID-19 and other patients in March and April 2020 without the hospital provision interventions, which alleviated significant shortfalls in CC nurses, CC and G&A beds and CC junior doctors. All elective surgery can be conducted at normal pre-pandemic levels provided the other interventions are sustained, but only if the daily number of COVID-19 patients occupying CC beds is not greater than 1550 in the whole of England. If the other interventions are not maintained, then elective surgery can only be conducted if the number of COVID-19 patients occupying CC beds is not greater than 320. However, there is greater national capacity to treat G&A patients: without interventions, it takes almost 10,000 G&A COVID-19 patients before any G&A elective patients would be unable to be accommodated. CONCLUSIONS: Unless COVID-19 hospitalisations drop to low levels, there is a continued need to enhance critical care capacity in England with field hospitals, use of private hospitals or deployment of former and newly qualified medical staff to allow some or all elective surgery to take place.