Emergency Department Environmental Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study.

This study aimed to document and empirically evaluate the physical environment strategies used by emergency departments (EDs) to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic; and to develop recommendations for managing future crises. Emergency departments made significant environmental modifications in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic but these modifications and the decision-making processes were seldomly studied. In this in-depth qualitative case study, a multidisciplinary research team conducted semistructured interviews with 11 professionals of various roles in environmental responses to the pandemic at a large urban ED in the U.