Modelling strategies to organize healthcare workforce during pandemics: Application to COVID-19

Abstract

Protection of the healthcare workforce is of paramount importance for the care of patients in the setting of a pandemic such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Healthcare workers are at increased risk of becoming infected. The ideal organisational strategy to protect the workforce in a situation in which social distancing cannot be maintained remains to be determined. In this study, we have mathematically modelled strategies for the employment of the hospital workforce with the goal of simulating the health and productivity of the workers. The models were designed to determine if desynchronization of medical teams by dichotomizing the workers may protect the workforce. Our studies model workforce productivity and the efficiency of home office applied to the case of COVID-19. The results reveal that a desynchronization strategy in which two medical teams work alternating for 7 days increases the available workforce.

Keywords: Desynchronization strategy; Differential equations; Epidemiology; Master equations; Mathematical modelling.