PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Pradeep Bhandari
AU  - Sharmila Subramaniam
AU  - Michael J Bourke
AU  - Asma Alkandari
AU  - Philip Wai Yan Chiu
AU  - James F Brown
AU  - Rajesh N Keswani
AU  - Raf Bisschops
AU  - Cesare Hassan
AU  - Gottumukkala S Raju
AU  - V Raman Muthusamy
AU  - Amrita Sethi
AU  - Gary R May
AU  - Eduardo Albéniz
AU  - Marco Bruno
AU  - Michal Filip Kaminski
AU  - Maryam Alkhatry
AU  - Majid Almadi
AU  - Mostafa Ibrahim
AU  - Fabian Emura
AU  - Eduardo Moura
AU  - Claudio Navarrete
AU  - Adolfo Wulfson
AU  - Christopher Khor
AU  - Ryan Ponnudurai
AU  - Haruhiro Inoue
AU  - Yutaka Saito
AU  - Naohisa Yahagi
AU  - Sergey Kashin
AU  - Evgeniy Nikonov
AU  - Honggang Yu
AU  - Amit P Maydeo
AU  - D Nageshwar Reddy
AU  - Michael B Wallace
AU  - Mark Bennett Pochapin
AU  - Thomas Rösch
AU  - Prateek Sharma
AU  - Alessandro Repici
TI  - Recovery of endoscopy services in the era of COVID-19: recommendations from an international Delphi consensus
AID  - 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-322329
DP  - 2020 Nov 01
TA  - Gut
PG  - 1915--1924
VI  - 69
IP  - 11
4099  - http://gut.bmj.com/content/69/11/1915.short
4100  - http://gut.bmj.com/content/69/11/1915.full
SO  - Gut2020 Nov 01; 69
AB  - The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on provision of endoscopy services globally as staff and real estate were repurposed. As we begin to recover from the pandemic, a cohesive international approach is needed, and guidance on how to resume endoscopy services safely to avoid unintended harm from diagnostic delays. The aim of these guidelines is to provide consensus recommendations that clinicians can use to facilitate the swift and safe resumption of endoscopy services. An evidence-based literature review was carried out on the various strategies used globally to manage endoscopy during the COVID-19 pandemic and control infection. A modified Delphi process involving international endoscopy experts was used to agree on the consensus statements. A threshold of 80% agreement was used to establish consensus for each statement. 27 of 30 statements achieved consensus after two rounds of voting by 34 experts. The statements were categorised as pre-endoscopy, during endoscopy and postendoscopy addressing relevant areas of practice, such as screening, personal protective equipment, appropriate environments for endoscopy and infection control precautions, particularly in areas of high disease prevalence. Recommendations for testing of patients and for healthcare workers, appropriate locations of donning and doffing areas and social distancing measures before endoscopy are unique and not dealt with by any other guidelines. This international consensus using a modified Delphi method to produce a series of best practice recommendations to aid the safe resumption of endoscopy services globally in the era of COVID-19.