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Impact of COVID‐19 pandemic on functioning of cytopathology laboratory: Experience and perspective from an academic centre in New York
Author(s) -
Virk Renu K.,
Wood Teresa,
TiscorniaWasserman Patricia G.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
cytopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.512
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1365-2303
pISSN - 0956-5507
DOI - 10.1111/cyt.12953
Subject(s) - personal protective equipment , covid-19 , medicine , pandemic , cytopathology , health care , work (physics) , medical emergency , perspective (graphical) , medical education , public relations , nursing , pathology , political science , engineering , computer science , mechanical engineering , disease , artificial intelligence , cytology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , outbreak , law
COVID‐19 has extraordinarily impacted every facet of the health care facilities’ operations. Various strategies and policies were implemented promptly to preserve resources, not only to provide medical care to the expected massive numbers of COVID‐19 patients, but also to mitigate the contagion spread at the workplace to ensure safety of healthcare workers. All routine, non‐essential medical services and procedures were ramped down and workers deemed non‐essential were directed to work remotely from home to reduce the number of people at hospital premises and preserve much needed personal protective equipment that were in short supply at the outset of the pandemic. The laboratories did not remain unscathed and were under immense pressure to maintain workplace safety while being operational and provide best patient care with limited resources. In this paper, we share our experience and challenges that we faced in a cytopathology laboratory at a major academic centre in New York, USA during the peak of infection.