**3. Safety in GI endoscopy**

Gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures should be adjusted to ensure both patient and healthcare worker safety. Many countries have developed their endoscopy management to improve the national quality of endoscopy procedures. In South Korea, The Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (KSGE) has initiated the National Endoscopy Quality Improvement Program to manage programs on endoscopic procedures, includes qualification of endoscopists, improvement of instruments and facilities in endoscopy units, and measurement of outcomes of endoscopy screening [11].

*Patient Safety and Healthcare Worker Safety in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy during COVID-19… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109128*

According to World Health Organization (WHO), recommendations to prevent harm during endoscopy include prevention of harm from anesthesia, avoidance of allergic or adverse drug reactions, effective communication among healthcare providers, standardized reporting on procedures, results, and complications [12].

In the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, both patients undergoing GIE and healthcare workers performing GIE are at risk of acquiring infection via direct contact, aerosol, or contaminated body fluid [8]. Most of the endoscopy units were reducing the performance, down to 50–90% reductions. The units prioritized the case using urgent, semi-urgent, and elective classifications [13]. Gastrointestinal endoscopy is performed only on potentially life-threatening conditions (urgent), such as gastrointestinal bleeding, foreign body retrieval, urgent nutritional access, cancer patient, and other conditions that cannot be postponed [9, 10].

To minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission, some strategies and modifications need to be implemented. To begin with, pre-endoscopic modifications are patient evaluation, COVID-19 screening, healthcare worker (HW) well-being, endoscopy room, equipment, and PPE. While the endoscopic modifications are PPE and restriction in the number of involved healthcare workers in the procedure room during endoscopy. Finally, the post-endoscopic adjustment is recovery room, endoscopic room decontamination, and scope disinfection.
