Ten Clinical Tips on COVID-19

for Healthcare Providers Involved in Patient Care

Worker Safety and Support

1. Understand and execute current infection prevention and control (IPC) practices for 

COVID-19. 

• Ensure HCP are well-trained on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE). 

• Implement strategies to optimize personal protective equipment (PPE), including implementing 

extended and limited reuse of N95 respirators, reserving N95 respirators for aerosol-generating 

procedures, creating extended use PPE units where only patients with COVID-19 are provided 

care, and implementing a walk-up testing booth that allows HCP to stand behind solid but 

transparent (e.g., polycarbonate) panels to collect samples for COVID-19. 

• Institute universal source control for all HCP, patients, and visitors. 

• Consider tracking PPE supplies available using the PPE burn rate calculator. 

2. Develop protocols for HCP to monitor themselves for fever and symptoms of COVID-19, 

restrict them from work when sick or post exposure, and to safely allow return to work after 

an exposure and/or suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection. 

3. Establish a plan for providing additional support for HCP, considering aspects such as 

mental health, parenting, meals, and non-punitive sick policies. 

Patient Service Delivery

4. Help your HCP become well-versed in evidence-based care of patients with COVID-19, 

including guidance provided by CDC, National Institutes of Health, the Infectious Diseases 

Society of America, the World Health Organization, and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign.

5. Understand the guidance for discharging a patient with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 

from the hospital to home or to a long-term care facility. 

6. Use telehealth strategies when feasible to provide high-quality patient care and reduce the 

risk of COVID-19 transmission in the healthcare setting. Consider implementing a phone 

advice line to triage patients and to address questions and concerns from possible COVID-19 

patients.

Data Streams for Situational Awareness

7. Maintain awareness of the COVID-19 situation in the state, city, and facility. Provide 

access to evidence-based guidance for caring for patients with COVID-19.

8. Report hospital capacity and patient impact data into the COVID-19 module for the 

National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). 

Ten Ways Healthcare Systems Can Operate Effectively During 

the COVID-19 Pandemic

CDC is listening to and learning from the experiences of healthcare systems as they respond to COVID-19. 

This document provides practical approaches that can be used to protect healthcare personnel (HCP), 

patients, and communities.

cdc.gov/coronavirus

CS 316858-A 05/06/2020
PLAN

Facility Practices

9. Strengthen your facility’s response mechanisms by becoming familiar with pandemic, 

COVID-19 specific, and crisis standards of care resources.

• Consider using a hospital preparedness checklist and the COVID-19Surge spreadsheet to estimate 

and respond to the surge in demand for hospital-based services.

• Put in place or activate plans for cohorting patients with COVID-19 and assigning dedicated staff. 

• Create plans to reduce staffing shortages and assess the need for alternative care sites, such as 

emergency field hospitals. 

• Consider setting up an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for your hospital if not already in 

place, and ensure the EOC has enough staff for an extended response. 

• Work towards resuming/maintaining essential healthcare services using a risk/benefit analysis for 

in-person care visits while optimizing telehealth. 

Communications

10. Develop and maintain a communication plan for your HCP, patients, and the community. 

Consider including virtual town halls, daily huddles with local leadership, calls with partners, 

emails and phone conferences for staff, media briefs, and others.

1. NYC Health’s Strategies for Reuse and Extended Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) During 

COVID-19 Outbreak: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/strategies-for-theconservation-of-respiratory-ppe.pdf

2. Institute of Medicine, Crisis Standards of Care, Summary of a Workshop Series: https://www.ncbi.nlm.

nih.gov/books/NBK32753/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK32753.pdf

3. University of Washington COVID-19 Resource Site: https://covid-19.uwmedicine.org/Pages/default.

aspx

4. California Department of Public Health statement on resuming deferred and preventive 

health care: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/

ResumingCalifornia%E2%80%99sDeferredandPreventiveHealthCare.aspx

5. Peters et al. NEJM Correspondence. Transforming ORs into ICUs. https://www.nejm.org/doi/

full/10.1056/NEJMc2010853?sort=newest&page=0

6. Klompas et al. NEJM Perspective. Universal Masking in Hospitals in the COVID-19 Era. https://www.

nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372?af=R&rss=currentIssue

7. Chen et al. Lancet. Fangcang shelter hospitals: a novel concept for responding to public health 

emergencies. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30744-3/fulltext

cdc.gov/coronavirus

Additional Resources