Triage of General Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Procedures During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results From a National Delphi Consensus Panel.
Tech Innov Gastrointest Endosc
; 23(2): 113-121, 2021.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-989293
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIMS:
As the COVID-19 pandemic moves into the postpeak period, the focus has now shifted to resuming endoscopy services to meet the needs of patients who were deferred. By using a modified Delphi process, we sought to develop a structured framework to provide guidance regarding procedure indications and procedure time intervals.METHODS:
A national panel of 14 expert gastroenterologists from throughout the US used a modified Delphi process, to achieve consensus regarding (1) common indications for general endoscopy, (2) critical patient-important outcomes for endoscopy, (3) defining time-sensitive intervals, (4) assigning time-sensitive intervals to procedure indications. Two anonymous rounds of voting were allowed before attempts at consensus were abandoned.RESULTS:
Expert panel reached consensus that procedures should be allocated to one of three timing categories (1) time-sensitive emergent = scheduled within 1 week, (2) time-sensitive urgent = scheduled within 1-8 weeks, (3) nontime sensitive = defer to > 8 weeks and reassess timing then. The panel identified 62 common general endoscopy indications (33 for EGD, 21 for colonoscopy, 5 for sigmoidoscopy). Consensus was reached on patient-important outcomes for each procedure indication, and consensus regarding timing of the procedure indication was achieved for 74% of indications. Panelists also identified adequate personal-protective-equipment, rapid point-of-care testing, and staff training as critical preconditions before endoscopy services could be resumed.CONCLUSION:
We used the validated Delphi methodology, while prioritized patient-important outcomes, to provide consensus recommendations regarding triaging a comprehensive list of general endoscopic procedures.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Language:
English
Journal:
Tech Innov Gastrointest Endosc
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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