Local translation of national guidance on discontinuing COVID-19 isolation into hospital policies results in considerable differences.

Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, national health experts gave hospitals rules on when it was safe to take patients out of isolation. But did hospitals follow them exactly? Researchers looked at seven Dutch hospitals and found big differences. While the national rules grouped patients into just 6 types and rarely changed, local hospitals created up to 16 patient types and changed their rules up to 12 times! Sometimes hospitals were stricter than the national rules, and sometimes they were more relaxed (like for patients on breathing machines). This shows how hard it is to have one perfect rule that works for every single hospital.