Healthcare professional experiences of making surgical oncology decisions and delivering COVID-19 safe care: a qualitative study.
Acta Chir Belg
; : 1-7, 2022 Sep 21.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2069941
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic was declared a public health emergency in March 2020. The British National Health Service (NHS) redirected medical attention towards prioritising COVID-19-positive patients in favour of less urgent care affecting cancer service provision. This study aims to explore experiences of healthcare professionals (HCPs) and investigate the impact of COVID-19 on decision-making in surgical oncology.METHODS:
HCPs with experience in surgical oncology were recruited from January 2021 to June 2021. Qualitative semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Interviews were conducted until data saturation. Thematic analysis was used to identify frequently discussed themes.RESULTS:
A total of 13 participants were interviewed, identifying three main pandemic-related challenges multi-disciplinary team (MDT) processes - telephone pre-operative assessments impoverished information elicited from in-person examination; service delivery - personal protective equipment (PPE) added complexity to surgical practice and more difficult communication; work routines - increased workload to deliver COVID-safe remote practices and decreased training time.CONCLUSIONS:
COVID-19 influenced cancer service provision with teams making significant changes to ensure that effective clinical reasoning and surgical standards were maintained. Managing safe COVID-19 surgical care impacted daily-life and work stressors. Post crisis, service delivery is looking to integrate telemedicine within care whilst reducing its impact on workload and in-practice training.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Language:
English
Journal:
Acta Chir Belg
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
00015458.2022.2122313
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