COVID-19: Optimizing Operations of Cancer Centres during the Pandemic

COVID-19疫情严重影响了全球医院的运营。虽然许多与新冠肺炎无关的业务被取消或推迟至稍后日期，但有些业务仍需继续。继续进行的最重要手术之一是癌症患者的治疗，由于免疫系统减弱，癌症患者也是最容易感染COVID-19疾病的人群之一。几项研究表明，应该制定更好的规定，以减少癌症患者或癌症幸存者的感染风险。该建议专注于COVID-19疫情对癌症中心运营的影响，目标是尽量减少整体疾病传播，特别关注放射治疗（RT）部门。由于COVID-19可以长时间保持无症状，并且在此期间疾病传播的可能性很高，因此很难识别受感染的患者，并且无法应用正常的患者隔离方案。由于能力和时间限制，也不可能对所有患者进行检测。该合作伙伴关系的目标是提供模拟、调度和优化工具，为癌症中心在COVID-19大流行期间的最佳运营提供指导，在识别受感染患者和工作人员方面存在不确定性。利用患者到达、工作人员时间表、患者护理路径和大流行进展的历史数据，我们深入了解了癌症中心在系统中当前和未来癌症患者疾病爆发的不同情况下需要做些什么。这项研究的潜在成果是患者和工作人员的调度政策，将最大限度地减少癌症中心患者和工作人员的疾病传播水平，防止此类中心的潜在爆发，并降低最脆弱的癌症患者的风险。

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected the operations of hospitals worldwide. While many non-COVID-related operations are cancelled or postponed to a later date, some need to be continued. Among the most important operations that are continued are treatments for cancer patients who are also among the most vulnerable of the population with regards to the COVID-19 disease due to their weakened immune system. Several studies suggest that better provisions should be made to reduce the risk of infection for patients with cancer or cancer survivors. This proposal focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operations of cancer centres, with the goal of minimizing overall disease transmission, with a particular focus on radiation therapy (RT) departments. Since COVID-19 can remain asymptomatic for a long time and there is a high probability of disease transmission during this time, it is extremely hard to identify infected patients and normal patient isolation protocols cannot be applied. It is also impossible to test all patients due to capacity and time limitations. The goal of this partnership is to provide simulation, scheduling, and optimization tools that provide guidelines for optimal operations of cancer centres during the COVID-19 pandemic, under uncertainty in identifying infected patients and staff. Using historical data on patient arrivals, staff schedules, patient care paths, and pandemic progression, we provide insights into what cancer centres need to do under different scenarios of the disease outbreak among current and future cancer patients in the system. The potential outcomes of this study are patient and staff scheduling policies that would minimize the level of disease transmission for patients and staff in a cancer centre, prevent potential outbreaks in such centres, and reduce the risk to cancer patients who are amongst the most vulnerable.