Rooming-in recommendation
The Pregnancy and Perinatal Care Panel have made their third conditional recommendation. This week’s concerns Rooming-in:
For women with COVID-19 who have given birth, support rooming-in of mother and newborn. However, women with COVID-19 should use infection control and prevention measures (mask and hand hygiene) while infectious.
There is currently no evidence to indicate that a woman with a known COVID-19 infection should be separated from her newborn to prevent transmission. As there are substantial known benefits for keeping mother and newborn together postpartum, women should be supported to be with their newborn as per usual care.
Women should be encouraged and supported in using good hand hygiene before and after handling their baby, and using a mask while in close contact with their baby. To the extent possible, women who are infectious should practice physical distancing when not feeding or caring for the baby.
Policy on use of media statements, preprints and other non-peer-reviewed papers
The Taskforce has developed a policy on the use of media statements, preprints and other non-peer-reviewed papers. As a living guideline in an area of fast-moving research, timeliness in formulating and updating recommendations is critical to guide current clinical care and management of COVID-19. Read the full policy here.
Consumer Panel update
Our Consumer Panel convened again this week and has initiated work to develop preferences and values statements to inform Taskforce recommendations.
In line with GRADE methodology, preference and values statements are important to guide considerations about the certainty of available evidence, and the nature and implementability of recommendations for specific patient-focused care. Recognising that systematically collected evidence on preferences and values from patients with suspected or confirmed COVDI-19 is not yet available, the Panel will continue to work through existing recommendations while monitoring the emerging literature in this space.
The Taskforce Consumer Panel is co-convened with our Community Partner, the Consumers Health Forum of Australia.
COVID-19 research pipeline
Rooming-in
Conditional recommendation
- For women with COVID-19 who have given birth, support rooming-in of mother and newborn. However, women with COVID-19 should use infection control and prevention measures (mask and hand hygiene) while infectious.
Key information revised to include specific considerations for people requiring palliative care and older people living with frailty or cognitive impairment. There has been no change to the strength or direction of the recommendation.
Minor change to the remark to note the publication of the preprint results of the RECOVERY trial on 15 July. There has been no change to the strength or direction of the recommendation.
The Taskforce is continually monitoring research to update recommendations weekly as new evidence accumulates.
Five clinical flowcharts have been developed by the Taskforce to cover:
* No changes required to flowcharts this week
We are currently reviewing evidence to develop recommendations and flowcharts to guide practice in areas including:
It is a core mission of the Taskforce to engage with frontline clinicians to rapidly identify and address priority clinical questions.
Each week we collect suggestions for new clinical questions or topics for consideration by the Taskforce. A document that lists all of the suggested questions, topics and new patient groups that we have received to date is updated each week and available here.
Please encourage your clinical colleagues to provide their insights via the website.
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
The next iteration of the Commission’s summary of ‘Potential Treatments in COVID-19′ (15 July 2020), is now available. The document now cross references with Taskforce recommendations. Read here.
Revisions to this version reflect research activity over the last three weeks, including:
Cochrane