Ashok Kumar, Ritesh Agarwal, Goverdhan Dutt Puri, JS Thakur, Pranay Mahajan, Navin Pandey, Rashmi Ranjan Guru, Usha Dutta, Inderpaul Singh Sehgal, Arunaloke Chakrabarti, Rajesh Chhabra, Arnab Ghosh, P V M Lakshmi, Manisha Biswal, Sanjay Jain, Muralidharan Jayashree, Babita Ghai, Jagat Ram, Shweta Talati, Ranjitpal Singh Bhogal, Ritin Mohindra, Vikas Suri, Arun Kumar Aggarwal, Jayanta Samanta, Gurmeet Singh, Vipin Koushal, Madhumita Premkumar, Sunita Malhotra, Tulika Gupta, Anurag Sachan, Pankaj Malhotra, Swapnajeet Sahoo, Mini P Singh, Kapil Goel, Rakesh Kochhar, Pankaj Arora, Rakesh Sehgal, Bhavneet Bharti, Ashish Bhalla, Sandeep Grover, Narayana Yaddanapudi, and S. K. Sharma
ObjectivesHealthcare personnel (HCP) are at an increased risk of acquiring COVID-19 infection especially in resource-restricted healthcare settings, and return to homes unfit for self-isolation, making them apprehensive about COVID-19 duty and transmission risk to their families. We aimed at implementing a novel multidimensional HCP-centric evidence-based, dynamic policy with the objectives to reduce risk of HCP infection, ensure welfare and safety of the HCP and to improve willingness to accept and return to duty.SettingOur tertiary care university hospital, with 12 600 HCP, was divided into high-risk, medium-risk and low-risk zones. In the high-risk and medium-risk zones, we organised training, logistic support, postduty HCP welfare and collected feedback, and sent them home after they tested negative for COVID-19. We supervised use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and kept communication paperless.ParticipantsWe recruited willing low-risk HCP, aged ResultsBetween 31 March and 20 July 2020, we clinically screened 5553 outpatients, of whom 3012 (54.2%) were COVID-19 suspects managed in the medium-risk zone. Among them, 346 (11.4%) tested COVID-19 positive (57.2% male) and were managed in the high-risk zone with 19 (5.4%) deaths. One (0.08%) of the 1224 HCP in high-risk zone, 6 (0.62%) of 960 HCP in medium-risk zone and 23 (0.18%) of the 12 600 HCP in the low-risk zone tested positive at the end of shift. All the 30 COVID-19-positive HCP have since recovered. This HCP-centric policy resulted in low transmission rates (ConclusionA multidimensional HCP-centric policy was effective in ensuring safety, satisfaction and welfare of HCP in a resource-poor setting and resulted in a willing workforce to fight the pandemic.