Identifying the effects of an upgraded ‘fever clinic’ on COVID-19 control and the workload of emergency department: a retrospective study in a tertiary hospital in China

Objectives: COVID-19 started spreading widely in China. Outpatient fever clinics (FC),were upgraded to serve for COVID-19 screening and prevention of disease transmission in large tertiary hospitals in China. We aimed to evaluate the effect of upgrading the FC system on rates of nosocomial COVID-19 infection and ED patient attendance at PUMCH Methods: The FC of PUMCH was upgraded on January 20, 2020. We performed a retrospective study of patients presenting to the FC between December 12, 2019 and February 29, 2020. January 20, 2020 was the date when COVID-19 was declared an outbreak in Beijing. Two groups of data were collected and subsequently compared with each other: The first group of data was collected within 40 days before January 20, 2020; The second group of data was collected within 40 days after January 20, 2020. All necessary data, including patient baseline information, diagnosis, follow-up conditions, and the transfer records between the FC and ED were collected and analyze...