New Zealand Emergency Department COVID-19 Preparedness: a cross-sectional survey and narrative view.

Objective: Our objective was to assess the level of COVID-19 preparedness of emergency departments (EDs) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) through the views of emergency medicine specialists working in district health boards around the country. Given the limited experience NZ hospitals have had with SARS-CoV-2, a comparison of current local practice with recent literature from other countries identifying known weaknesses may help prevent future healthcare worker infections in NZ.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of NZ emergency specialists in November 2020 to evaluate preparedness of engineering, administrative policy and personal protective equipment (PPE) use.