Schiavonia Hospital response to COVID-19 outbreak: a first single-center experience.

On February 21st 2020, Schiavonia Hospital (SH) detected the first 2 cases of COVID-19 in Veneto Region. As a result of the underlying concomitant spread of infection, in two months SH had to rearrange the clinical services in terms of structural changes to the building, management of spaces, human resources and supplies, in order to continue providing optimal care to the patients and staff safety. The aim of this article is to describe how SH was able to adjust its services coping with the epidemiological stages of the pandemic. Three phases can be therefore identified. The first, after initial cases’ identification, characterized by the hospital isolation. In the second phase the hospital reopened, the facility was divided into two unmatching areas, named COVID-19 and COVID-free, to prevent intra-hospital contamination. The last phase was characterized by the re-assessment of the facility as the largest COVID Hospital in Veneto, draining exclusively COVID-19 patients from the surrounding areas.