Commentary

Resumption of Elective Surgery Following COVID-19 Outbreak, Guideline for Female Pelvic Medicine and Surgery

Abstract

Division of Female Pelvic Medicine and Surgery, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Emam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of medical sciences proposed a clinically relevant algorithm to guide appropriate decision making based on underlying risk stratification and resource utilization in order to resume elective surgeries, following COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The consequence of standardized decision-making factors and transparency of the principles will provide more assurance, consistency, and reliability on both sides, care providers and the patient. It also will decrease ethical dilemmas and moral criticism for surgeons. Eventually, this approach is applicable in any other disaster preparedness as a logical stratification of surgical indications for the female pelvic floor surgical procedures.

1. McKay B, Calfas J, Ansari T. Coronavirus declared pandemic by World Health Organization. The Wall Street Journal 2020.
2. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS Releases Recommendations on adult elective surgeries, non-essential medical, surgical, and dental procedures during COVID-19 response. 2020.
3. American College of Surgeons. COVID-19: Guidance for Triage of Non-Emergent Surgical Procedures .2020.
4. American College of Surgeons. COVID-19: Recommendations for Management of Elective Surgical Procedures. 2020.
5. Aminian A, Safari S, Razeghian-Jahromi A, Ghorbani M, Delaney CP. COVID-19 Outbreak and Surgical Practice: Unexpected Fatality in Perioperative Period. Ann Surg 2020 ; 272: e27-e29.
6. Commins J. Surgeon general urges providers to consider stopping all elective surgeries – hospitals push
back. Health Leaders 2020.
7. Stahel PF.How to risk-stratify elective surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic?. Patient Saf Surg 2020; 14: 8.
8. Parker-Autry CY, Barber MD, Kenton K, Richter HE. Measuring outcomes in urogynecological surgery: "perspective is everything". Int Urogynecol J 2013; 24: 15-25.
9. Parden AM, Griffin RL, Hoover K, Ellington DR, Gleason JL, Burgio KL, Richter HE. Prevalence, Awareness, and Understanding of Pelvic Floor Disorders in Adolescent and Young Women.Female Pelvic Med Reconstr Surg 2016; 22: 346-54.
10. Hallock JL, Handa VL.The epidemiology of pelvic floor disorders and childbirth: an update.Obstet Gynecol Clin North Am. 2016; 43: 1–13.
11. Weise K, Baker M, Bogel-Burroughs N. The coronavirus is forcing hospitals to cancel surgeries. The New York Times 2020.
12. Sun P, Lu X, Xu C, Sun W, Pan B. Understanding of COVID-19 based on current evidence. J Med Virol 2020 ;92: 548-51.
13. COVID-19 Hospital Impact Model for Epidemics (CHIME). UPenn Medicine 2020.
14. Haya N, Feiner B, Baessler K, Christmann-Schmid C, Maher CH.Perioperative interventions in pelvic organ prolapse surgery. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2018; 8: CD013105.
15. Brindle M, Gawande A. Managing COVID-19 in Surgical Systems. Ann Surg 2020; 272: e1-e2.
16. WHO. Rational use of personal protective equipment (‎PPE)‎ for coronavirus disease (‎COVID-19)‎: interim guidance, 2020.
17. Zhou F, Yu T, Du R, Fan G, Liu Y, Liu Z, et al. Clinical course andrisk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 2020; 395:1054-62.
Files
IssueVol 14, No 1 (March 2020) QRcode
SectionCommentary
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/jfrh.v14i1.3781
Keywords
Coronavirus COVID-19 Elective surgery Female Pelvic Medicine

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Ghanbari Z, Mostaan F, Eftekhar T, Deldar M, Changizi N, Adabi K. Resumption of Elective Surgery Following COVID-19 Outbreak, Guideline for Female Pelvic Medicine and Surgery. J Family Reprod Health. 2020;14(1):1-4.