Establishment of Coronavirus post-hospital recovery sites by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences: Action report and logistical analysis

At the late 2019, a report of cases of Covid-19 was announced in Wuhan, China. On February 20, 2009, the first case of the disease was reported in Iran. Due to the prevalence of this disease, appropriate measures/actions were needed to be taken into account to deal with this epidemy through the training of individuals and treatment of patients.

Due to the global nature of this epidemic, different policies have been adopted in different countries. In this study, those measures and actions taken in regards to establishment of Coronavirus recovery sites at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran are first examined based on in-depth interviews with some people in charge of Coronavirus epidemic management. Then, the gathered information are analyzed from a logistical viewpoint based upon the so-called diagnosing approach which is frequently used in the domain of process management. Accordingly, some suggestions are finally provided to improve such actions in the future similar cases, which cover those suggestion related to the preparation and response phases.

Several logistical actions should be performed for better preparation to respond suitably to similar epidemics in the future: improving logistics actions in the preparedness phase using a proactive approach, defining the roles and responsibilities of parties involved, availability of required supporting resources and maintenance of required equipment.  

In order to deal with logistical constraints, coordination and cooperation between different parties involved must be established. According to this approach, determining the most important processes of a recovery center and the people involved in the operations along with creating a contact tree and a list of important tools, resources, data sources to access people in emergencies as well as providing a list of vendors of equipment, and the right space for their storage are considered as the required preparedness items.