Purpose of review: The recent COVID-19 outbreak has clearly shown how epidemics/pandemics can challenge developed countries' healthcare systems. Proper management of equipment and human resources is critical to provide adequate medical care to all patients admitted to the hospital and the ICU for both pandemic-related and unrelated reasons.
Recent findings: Appropriate separate paths for infected and noninfected patients and prompt isolation of infected critical patients in dedicated ICUs play a pivotal role in limiting the contagions and optimizing resources during pandemics. The key to handle these challenging events is to learn from past experiences and to be prepared for future occurrences. Hospital space should be redesigned to quickly increase medical and critical care capacity, and healthcare workers (critical and noncritical) should be trained in advance.
Summary: A targeted improvement of hospital and ICU protocols will increase medical care quality for patients admitted to the hospital for any clinical reasons during a pandemic.
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