As medical centers across the world prepare for and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, guidelines for providing vital care, while protecting the safety of both patients and health care workers, are increasingly critical.

Multiple recommendations at the international and federal levels offer guidance for surgical tiering, but are not specific to the unique needs of neurosurgical practice.

Published today in Neurosurgery, neurosurgeon Praveen Mummaneni, MD and colleagues, including neurosurgery residents John Burke, MD, PhD and Andrew Chan, MD, describe a neurosurgical treatment algorithm, developed institutionally at UCSF. The protocols are based on three tiers of outbreak ‘surge levels’ to triage case scheduling and appropriately scale OR utilization based on the acuity of neurosurgical cases.

“Our protocol is a framework for surgical conduct during COVID-19 outbreak,” said Dr. Mummaneni, “to promote a dialogue of when cases need to happen.”

Read the full publication here.

Listen to Drs. Mummaneni, Burke, and Chan discuss their paper during a CNS Virtual Visiting Professor Session, recorded here.

 

Reference

Burke JF, Chan AK, Mummaneni V, Chou D, Lobo EP, Berger MS, Theodosopoulos PV, and Mummaneni PV. (2020) Letter: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Global Pandemic: A Neurosurgical Treatment Algorithm. Neurosurgery. [Epub ahead of print]