Separating Infectious Patients

Separating infectious patients from noninfectious patients is a tremendous challenge in a world with COVID-19. TJC recommends a few different ways to handle it.

Separating Infectious Patients From Noninfectious Patients

First, create separate entrances to route patients and staff properly. In fact, you can take these steps within your current environment. But, during construction or renovation projects, build separate emergency room entrances and interior spaces into the design.

Airborne Isolations

Further, TJC suggests that if patient demand for airborne isolation exceeds capacity,

you could establish a temporary suite and convert an entire multi-bedded suite to airborne isolation. This is a better option than converting single patient rooms into negative pressure rooms, depending on
demand.

Preparedness Checklist

Lastly, TJC provides a preparedness checklist from one of their publications for high consequence infectious diseases. Accordingly, this checklist is designed to help organizations critique their emergency operations plan for emerging infectious disease.