[Hospital surge capacity volunteers in an emergency: a scoping review]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was marked by increased patient surge in hospitals around the world as well as significant staff shortages due to illness and isolation. Hospital preparedness plans in Germany should plan for staff surge capacity in the event of a future pandemic or disaster.

We assessed whether non-medical helpers could be incorporated as surge capacity workforce in German hospitals.

For this scoping review we performed an initial pilot search using GoogleScholar, followed by a systematic query of the Embase and Medline databases. The identified literature and the results of the pilot search were summarized in a narrative-descriptive way.

We identified 64 relevant articles for the scoping review (4 reports, 5 reviews, 1 book section, 13 interventional and 4 observational studies, 8 cross-sectional surveys, 12 expert articles, 13 case reports, 4 training materials). Previous preparedness plans have included volunteers from nongovernmental-organizations, students from medical and public health faculties and spontaneous volunteers. Training this surge capacity workforce is usually a requirement and can take place pre-emptively or at short notice (just in time).

An increasing body of evidence describes including volunteers in preparedness plans within the clinical setting. Especially medical students seem to be a well-established surge capacity workforce that could be systematically planned into preparedness plans in the event of another pandemic or significant disaster in Germany.