ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The COVID19 pandemic ended all national and international in-person educational conferences. In response to this, and in an effort to continue sharing and advancing knowledge in spine surgery, a multi-institutional collaboration formed a “virtual” spine educational platform. METHODS: Our group, consisting of five spinal neurosurgeons and one neuroradiologist, formed an online platform called the Virtual Global Spine Conference (VGSC). A website was created and maintained by the Weill Cornell Neurosurgery Department, and biweekly, Zoom meetings were established where prominent spine physicians from various specialties would deliver case-based presentations on spine and spine surgery related conditions at no cost to the participants. The “faculty hosts” coordinated the speakers, promotion and delivery of the program. All sessions are recorded and archived online. RESULTS: In less than one month, over 1000 surgeons, trainees and other specialists signed up for the program, with a continuous rate of 50- 100 new registrants per week. Each session draws an audience of 200- 300 participants. An early survey to the participants indicated that 94% would like this program to continue post-COVID. CONCLUSION: The early success of the Virtual Global Spine Conference is a reflection of the continued interest in spine education despite the COVID pandemic. There is widespread opinion, backed by our own survey results, that many want to see “virtual” education continue post-pandemic. The future goals of VGSC are to continue to deliver high-quality sessions led by prominent surgeons and other specialists, to better engage and collaborate with national organizations, and to collect long-term, granular data to better assess effectiveness and quality of this program.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: As ofMay 04, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 3.5 million people and touched every inhabited continent. Accordingly, it has stressed health systems the world over leading to the cancellation of elective surgical cases and discussions regarding healthcare resource rationing. It is expected that rationing of surgical resources will continue even after the pandemic peak, and may recur with future pandemics, creating a need for a means of triaging emergent and elective spine surgery patients. METHODS: Using a modified Delphi technique, a cohort of 16 fellowship-trained spine surgeons from 10 academic medical centers constructed a scoring system for the triage and prioritization of emergent and elective spine surgeries. Three separate rounds of videoconferencing and written correspondence were used to reach a final scoring system. Sixteen test cases were used to optimize the scoring system so that it could categorize cases as requiring emergent, urgent, high-priority elective, or low-priority elective scheduling. RESULTS: The devised scoring system included 8 independent components: neurological status, underlying spine stability, presentation of a highrisk post-operative complication, patient medical comorbidities, expected hospital course, expected discharge disposition, facility resource limitations, and local disease burden. The resultant calculator was deployed as a freely-available web-based calculator: https://jhuspine3.shinyapps. io/SpineUrgencyCalculator/ CONCLUSION: Here we present the first quantitative urgency scoring system for the triage and prioritizing of spine surgery cases in resource-limited settings. We believe that our scoring system, while not all-encompassing, has potential value as a guide for triaging spine surgical cases during the COVID pandemic and post-COVID period.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine burnout and its related factors among nurses working at a tertiary hospital, who had experienced caring for patients with confirmed and suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including those with severe and critical conditions during the outbreak. Methods: Responses of 129 nurses, who worked in a tertiary hospital in Daegu, which was designated as a special control area for infectious disease in Korea, were analyzed. Data were collected from November 1, 2020 to December 14, 2020 using self-report questionnaires. Analysis was performed using t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression. Results: Burnout did not show any statistically significant differences in age, sex, marital status, total length of clinical experience, and the department at the time of caring for COVID-19 patients. Compassion fatigue, stress, depression, and anxiety were positively related with burnout, and compassion satisfaction was negatively related with burnout. In regression analysis, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and stress were confirmed as the predictive factors of burnout. Conclusion: The study results suggest that compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and stress could play an important role in reducing burnout among tertiary hospital nurses during infectious disease outbreaks. © 2021 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing.