Modelling strategies to organize healthcare workforce during pandemics: application to COVID-19

Protection of healthcare workforce who are at increased risk to become infected is of paramount relevance for the care of patients in the setting of a pandemic such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The ideal organisational strategy to protect the workforce in a situation in which social distancing cannot be maintained remains to be determined. In this study, we have mathematically modelled strategies for the employment of hospital workforce with the goal to simulate health and productivity of the workers. The models were designed to determine if desynchronization of medical teams by dichotomizing the workers may protect the workforce. Our studies model workforce productivity depending on the infection rate, the presence of reinfection and the efficiency of home office and apply our theory to the case of COVID-19. The results reveal that a desynchronization strategy in which two medical teams work alternating for 7 days increases the available workforce.