What Happens after the COVID-19 Crisis: Managing “Patient Surge” in Academic Breast Imaging Division

Abstract

The first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was reported in the Eastern Province (Qatif City) on March 2, 2020 (Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health, https://www.moh.gov.sa/Pages/Default.aspx). Since then, a cluster of cases continued to expand and spread throughout the kingdom. Several procedures were implemented to contain the pandemic. By May 8, 2020, the Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control had reported a total of 35,432 cases (https://covid19.cdc.gov.sa/daily-updates/). As of this writing, the projected peak of cases in Saudi Arabia occurred from April 24 to May 10, 2020. “Bending of the curve” will extend this curve to June and July, with a theoretically ending date of September 10, 2020 (Predictive Monitoring of COVID-19 developed by SUTD Data-Driven Innovation Lab, https://ddi.sutd.edu.sg). However, social distancing practices will remain in force until mid-2021 (Ferguson et al., Imperial College London, https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/handle/10044/1/77482). This pandemic affected every aspect of people’s lives with a significant impact on medical education and healthcare services, including breast imaging. In this article, the author lists some of the possible solutions for problems relating to patient surge once stay-at-home orders are relaxed.

Keywords

• Covid-19
• screening mammography
• patient surge
• abbreviated breast MRI
• breast imaging preparedness