Track: Healthcare Operations and Services

Abstract

Detection tests for COVID-19 are important to mitigate its spread. However, it is not yet clear what are the best practices for its realization. This paper aims to propose best practices to avoid possible failures in the points of contact of the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) collection process in an emergency department of a hospital for the care of patients who are suspected or diagnosed with the new coronavirus. For this purpose, we performed a process mapping of the RT-PCR collection process using the Service Blueprint tool to identify the points of contact between the patients and the hospital staff. Thus, we identified the possible failures in these points, with the process actors, and we prioritized them according to their perception about Gravity, Urgency, and Tendency matrix. Our results show that the most critical failures are related to the information and communication between the process actors and the patients. In this way, improvements were proposed related to the standardization, information material, continued training, development of specialized teams, creation of protocols, and use of information technology.