It was over two and a half years ago when the Corona Virus Pandemic sent the world home for various amounts of time. While there have been different waves of post-pandemic recovery by states, the CDC’s recent announcement of its move away from quarantine and social distancing suggests things are making a slow return to normal. Coming out of a two-and-a-half-year global pandemic is a good time to reflect on the performance of our systems and processes. Considering the pandemic inundated the healthcare industry with demanded care, questions, requested answers, and much more, there are still areas we can improve efficiencies, reduce risk, and better prepare.
Observations
As previously mentioned, the pandemic left our healthcare systems swamped with work for the better part of two years. Providers faced long, arduous shifts and difficult health outlooks, despite their every effort to combat such. In reflecting, there are some areas of improvement that we can now see would have lessened the burden of the last two years. Improving areas such as accurately predicting length of stay, improving medication adherence among patients, forecasting incoming volume, strategizing which days and times we should be fully staffed, and reducing the rate of readmission could significantly advance the system and reduce the strain on our providers.
Impact
The impact of such changes would not only be felt internally within the industry but also nationwide. These changes have the potential of improving patient care through more accurate diagnoses and improved efficiency, also improving the general opinion of the system, and the burden on providers.
