Determining the New Norm Elements in Emergency Departments in Malaysia During a Pandemic: A Fuzzy Delphi Method

Emergency departments (EDs) have had to cope with various pandemics, such as HIN1, Ebola and the currently ongoing COVID-19. This study aimed to determine the elements of the new norm that has introduced changes into healthcare systems, particularly EDs, during the COVID-19 pandemic and to obtain consensus from the experts, the Emergency physicians in EDs across Malaysia. No previous study has been conducted on this topic.

This study used the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) to acquire expert consensus. There were two phases in this study. The first involved extracting the elements to be assessed by the selected experts from a literature review. Three major domains were considered: infrastructure, governance and human resources. A total of 35 items were identified and divided into the three domains. In the second phase, the selected items were sent to a group of 15 ED physicians, who were asked to rate the items on a Likert-type scale. The data were then analysed using FDM.

A total of 35 items were identified as possible new norms from a literature search for the three domains (governance, infrastructure and human resources). The first step of the FDM analysis showed that 9 out of the 35 items did not fulfil the initial requirement of the FDM, since the threshold value (d) must be lower than 0.2 (d 75%. Regarding the third requirement for FDM, only 1 out of the 35 items did not meet the criteria of an average fuzzy number (A value) of > 0.5. Finally, 25 items fulfilled all three requirements of FDM, so these were retained and the remaining 10 items were discarded.

The FDM used in this study had identified 25 items achieved the required level of agreement by the chosen experts. The results of this study can be used to guide EDs in Malaysia to utilise the new norms items in mitigating major outbreak affecting the ED services.