Question

how the landscape of healthcare will change due to the pandemic?

Answer 1

how the landscape of healthcare will change due to the pandemic?

Answer

Introduction

The Healthcare involves the organisational setup for the prevention and treatment of diseases through professional medical and healthcare services. Provision of quality health care services in order to maintain healthy life and prevent the diseased states and premature death is the goal of healthcare.

The pandemic has been an eye-opener for many countries and nations across the world who have suddenly become increasingly aware of their insufficient health care services.The pandemic has been a wake up call for most nations of the world and they will revamp the face of their healthcare services changing its landscape realising the inadequacies of the available health care facilities due to the pandemic.

Coronavirus pandemic has presented the mankind with the challenge of providing care of a very infectious disease on a global level with higher needs of Intensive care/ventilatory care for the very sick patients in large numbers. This challenge has necessitated changes in the health care system so as to be able to cater to the health of the people and sustain and prolong human life.

These changes are ongoing and imperative in order to face the pandemic of this large proportion.The changes will bring about a total transformation in the landscape of healthcare.

The landscape of the healthcare will change in the following ways due to the pandemic:

1. Enhanced government focus and increased healthcare budget with more government spending on healthcare facilities, tertiary care hospitals and Intensive care units.Healthcare provision will emerge as the top priority in the policy decision matters due to the pandemic.

2.Focus on development of Intensive Care units and tertiary hospitals will gain priority due to the pandemic necessitating critical care facilities for the sick patients.The hospital care system will see an increasing number of Intensive care beds ,critical care beds,negative pressure rooms and more ventilators as a part of major structural reorganization due to the pandemic.

3.Telemedicine,telediagnosis and telehealth monitoring: A shift in the point of care will occur due to the pandemic shifting the health care from in-person consultation to digital consultation with increased use of technology such as digital thermometer,digital stethoscope,digital blood pressure monitor,pulse oximeters and so on.

4.Researches, advances, innovations and improvement in healthcare technology will be seen with increased use of automation and artificial intelligence in healthcare. Robots may become the new norm to treat infectious diseases and used for providing medications, providing care services, for purposes of disinfection.

Artificial Intelligence and digital technology will integrate into the landscape of healthcare due to the pandemic.

5.Stress management for healthcare workers will see increased emphasis due to the pandemic leading to higher levels of mental and physical stresses faced by the healthcare workers leading to their burnout and mental,emotional ,psychological and physical fatigue states. The recognition of the stress faced by the healthcare workers and the focus on improvement in the working conditions of the medical professionals and health care workers will gain priority in the policy decisions

6. The healthcare organisations will see increased recruitment and training of health care professionals catering to critical care, respiratory care, ventilatory care and this will facilitate better opportunity for training/ education/employment of the medical professionals and the other healthcare workers.There will be increase in the demand of the medical professionals and nursing personnel who can handle ventilators, respiratory care and work in Intensive care units.

7.The sensitization of the people towards the importance of the health care workers, improvement in the financial facilities and benefits for healthcare workers, provision of social security schemes for healthcare workers in line with those of the defence personnel and recognition of the medical profession as the warfighting profession inline with the defence personnel will ensue due to the pandemic.

8.Robust research and surveillance will be implemented in healthcare due to the pandemic in order to search for suitable pharmacological solutions/ vaccines to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and to prevent its spread.

9.Covid-19 testing will become a necessity and the healthcare sector may be segregated into covid and non covid zones so as to cater the needs of the people infected with covid separately from those not infected with covid such that there is no lateral spread of infection/cross infection of patients while they are being treated at the hospitals.

10.New insurance policies and insurance risk management strategies will be in the forefront in the healthcare businesses due to the pandemic and healthcare finances, healthcare expenditure,healthcare insurances related policies will see paradigm shift.

11.The pharmaceutical companies will experience fresh boost in the fields of research and development of new drugs and molecules directed against the coronavirus, new microbes and emerging new diseases.Economic impetus and fresh investments will ensue in the pharmaceutical sector.New healthcare startups may come up.

12.The epidemiologists will be on the forefront in healthcare playing a key role in the surveillance and research related to the pandemic and along with the health care workers will have a major responsibility to help in controlling the pandemic.

13.The use of standard hygiene measures, sanitizers, hand washing ,face masks, social distancing, coronavirus testing will be the new norm that the healthcare industry will follow due to the pandemic ---The new normal.

Conclusion :

The coronavirus pandemic will change the landscape of healthcare causing a paradigm shift from traditional healthcare towards telehealth,telediagnosis and telemedicine, increased use of healthcare digital technology and increased government focus and expenditure on development of intensive care, critical care and tertiary healthcare facilities, focus on healthcare infrastructure development ,pharmaceutical research and healthcare technology innovations.