Five years ago, Covid-19 brought unprecedented changes to healthcare across San Diego County. Although some of these changes have long been over, including delays in elective surgeries and a ban on visitors, the pandemic has left a lasting trace of its own today.
While some, such as the telehealth embrace, are very obvious, others are more subtle and changing cultural norms, in ways that are not always obvious to patients who are paying attention to, whether in the doctor’s office or the emergency department of a hospital.
Anyone planning a doctor appointment since 2020 knows that virtual visits made through video links, not directly via video links from smartphones or computers, are much more common than before the coronavirus.
Local experiences show trends. Scripps Health, one of the region’s largest health systems, reports that it had a total of 188 telehealth visits prior to the pandemic. That number jumped to an average of 55,000 a month during the Covid-19 lockdown, peaking on April 20, 2020 with a one-day telehealth consultation. Today, the average is around 28,000 digital visits per month, about half the peak of the pandemic, but much more than pre-pandemic.
recently analysis Medi-cal telehealth visits have shown a similar trend, increasing 18 times between 2019 and 2020, maintaining a much higher level than before.
“It’s true, telehealth is something that’s stuck,” said Dr. Ghazala Sharieff, Chief Medical and Operations Officer of Acute Care at Scripps Health. “Some patients don’t like going out to see their doctors, and they also have a lot of telehealth-related issues.
Temporary allowances during the pandemic, which allowed Medicare to pay for telehealth visits, were key to seeing such rapid recruitment. And that change is now under threat, with cancellations becoming political football in Washington, DC, and budget debate. Fact Check Analysis Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan healthcare policy think tank.
But there are more subtle ways the pandemic has changed healthcare culture.
masking
The use of masks in healthcare settings is undoubtedly undergoing significant cultural changes, Dr. Summercodor, chief medical officer at Sharptula Vista Medical Center. Previous pandemic, doctors, or patients wearing masks during routine interactions were relatively rare outside the operating room where surgical masks were deligures for decades.
“Previously it would have been awkward to see someone wearing a mask, but now if you see someone wearing a mask, “OK, they’re probably getting through something sick or something like that,” Khodor said.
A major change that has been caught up in healthcare is the idea that both patients and providers will cover up if they have respiratory symptoms. This is especially true when patients come to the emergency department. Those who sneeze or cough are much more likely to be asked to cover up than they would have had before Covid-19.
“It’s become more socially acceptable. I remember it freaking out people at first,” Khodor said.
He added Also, it is much more likely these days for hospitals and clinics to billet like patients, as these patients, to cluster people with seasonal smells into one area, while making stronger efforts to bring those without such symptoms together elsewhere.
There Also It’s a deeper commitment to air quality than before the pandemic with air purifiers that are commonly used in patient rooms. Several steps, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, often referred to as ECMO, It is more commonly used in respiratory patients than in the previous cases. Scrub carbon dioxide from the blood and inject fresh oxygen, ECMO has become the go-to technology for patients who cratered while their lung function was fighting Covid-19. Today, the use of technology is expanding even more widely. The pilot program is discovering that early use of ECMO can save lives in patients suffering from cardiac arrest.
Strengthen the bond
But both Sharieff and Khodor said a big part of the healthcare change the pandemic has created comes down to behind-the-scenes collaboration.
During the pandemic, Sharieff said weekly conference calls with medical directors from all the town’s health systems were common and rarely occurred before 2020.
The group no longer meets weekly, but there has been a development in a culture where medical leaders from various local health systems are crosstalkers more than before. Everyone stays connected through group text messaging, as often happens in modern life.
“The pandemic has forced us to understand how we can solve problems that we have never solved before,” Khodor said. “The collaboration was not just hospitals, but different hospitals, not just other sharp hospitals.
“We worked with hospitals in the San Diego area, knowing it with Scripps, UCSD, others, and parts of the country.”
And the willingness to discuss the issue continues more widely today.
“As you know today, we cuddle very often,” Khodor said. “Whether it’s text or email, there are different ways to escalate things whenever you want.”
Lack of equipment and staff
Frontline health workers during the pandemic recall the immediate shortage of personal protective equipment and the distribution of N-95 masks and other materials, including protective gowns and gloves. The lack of them Most of these consumables have occurred during months of supply chain disruption that began when factories closed, which had very strictly closed COVID-19 (COVID-19) A lockdown policy implemented in China.
Healthcare unions were so infuriated by this situation that they pushed and helped them pass the nation Congressional Bill 2537 Request your healthcare provider to stock 3 months of PPE and create a buffer if there is another disruption in the flow of these products.
Michael Kennedy, a neuroaddictive nurse at San Diego Health, California and president of the California Nurses Association, said a better stockpile would help him and many others avoid the pandemic situation in which he and many others found themselves, caring for patients whose immune systems are said to be incapable of being able to use masks because of their immune system being compromised and appropriate.
“What was really strange was that they were told they didn’t have access to proper PPE, they couldn’t access popular people, and they treat us like they couldn’t trust us to use it wisely,” he said.
Kennedy said staffing is the main supply that many healthcare workers have been most concerned these days, not for his union role, not for his employer. With so many healthcare workers leaving their professions, the union has been holding regular strikes since 2020, demanding better wages and more people to ensure that California’s nursing rates are maintained.
Many people are skeptical of the current focus on artificial intelligence among health care managers, he added.
“They want to reduce staff to naked bones and replace it with AI,” Kennedy said. “That’s not a way for you to prepare for another pandemic, that’s not a lesson we should have learned.
“The lesson we should have learned is to respect healthcare workers and staff.”
Medical staff have become targeted
One of the respects that was respected during the pandemic was the patient care of nurses, doctors, technicians and other workers at the bedside. As mask and vaccination mandates progressed, some patients who felt their personal autonomy was under threat began to escalate in hospitals and clinics, and some patients who were hit by the blow, refusing to wear masks when the coronavirus tests tested positive.
Kennedy said he believes this type of interaction has subsided over the past five years. It is not very common for patients to coolly lose covid-related requirements, such as masking, to prevent patients from spreading the infection into busy waiting rooms.
“I think that aspect has returned to baseline,” Kennedy said. “It was a bit nervous for a while, but I think it’s back to what it was before.”
But he added that how it was before was not necessarily peaceful. He said there is a long history of patient violence against health care workers, and that trend has endured, even if COVID-related care doesn’t seem to cause the level of anger it used to be.
He said busy busy places such as the emergency department are still considered full contact allocations.
“You know, it’s one of the most dangerous jobs,” Kennedy said. “You’re more likely to be attacked by your healthcare job than you are in law enforcement.”
Initially published:
