Abstract for: Medical Resources Overload during the Pandemic: A System Dynamics Modelling Research

Background Most countries adopted reopen strategy after a period of restrictions against Covid-19, and healthcare systems were being hit by a flood of infected patients. Healthcare systems in almost all countries are overload or even collapsed. Methods System dynamics model is built to investigate the healthcare system during Omicron wave in Shanghai. One part of the model is based on the extension the traditional SIR model to represent the spread of the virus and the other part of the model represents the medical resource demand during the pandemic. Results Scenarios show that a well-developed PHC system could help to significantly alleviate the pressure at the hospital. Increase the first contact at PHC can avoid overload of hospital doctors, which saved limited resource for those severe cases. Increase the PHC’s ability of health manage to be able to handle mild patients to recover at home increase the turnover of hospital beds. Improve the ability to correctly identify high risk patients at PHC can increase efficiency. A combination of these can significantly reduce medical resource overload during pandemic. Conclusion The emergency allocation of medical resources is one of the effective measures to respond to reopening, however we believe that the construction of PHC-based referral system is a more sustainable alternative strategy.