Evaluating the impact of COVID-19 protection measures and staff absence on radiotherapy practice: A simulation study
The simulated scenario results suggest that appropriate staffing of the radiotherapy centre during a pandemic crisis is essential and that staff absence can lead to prolonged patient waiting times and reduced throughput with severe continuity of care consequences. The simulation model demonstrated that centre administrators are a bottleneck if they must perform COVID-19 protection measures in addition to their administrative duties. The effect could be mitigated by outsourcing COVID-19 protection tasks to external service providers or other centre staff.
Authors
- Joe Viana (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6018-8242)
- Melanie Reuter-Oppermann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2231-7749)
- Ralf Müller-Polyzou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6801-0112)
- Elisabeth Jambor
Institutions
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg (DE)
- University of Kaiserslautern (DE)
- BI Norwegian Business School (NO)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- University of Koblenz and Landau (DE)
- Maastricht University (NL)
- St Olav's University Hospital (NO)
Publication Details
- Journal
- PLoS ONE
- Published
- 2025-01-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314190
- Primary Topic
- COVID-19 and healthcare impacts
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Norges Forskningsråd