COVID-19 Crisis Management at Good Health Hospital

Introduction: Levels of Crisis Response

With any disease, there are three basic levels of addressing a crisis: primary care (prevention), management during the early stages, and more intensive tertiary-level treatment when the disease has become more advanced. With COVID-19, the healthcare system has been confronting several critical factors related to the pandemic. Beyond the disease itself, there has been an evolution of new variants such as Omicron, which has infected already-vaccinated individuals, along with widespread resistance to vaccination. The speed at which the pandemic has intensified is of particular concern.

According to Salvador-Carulla et al. (2020), hospitals must move away from a strictly evidence-based framework—with rigorous long-term testing of various epidemiological approaches—and instead adopt an evidence-informed framework. Hospitals must make do with the best available information, given the rapidity with which the pandemic has spread. Good management has always required a balance of qualitative and quantitative data, but now qualitative and immediate observations (such as the reasons for vaccine resistance or provider burnout) may need to be given greater weight, given the demand for immediate information and quick action (Khaliq, 2018).

To fight the pandemic, epidemiological management requires two critical factors: first, retaining and supporting providers; and second, promoting vaccination.

Roles and Responsibilities of Healthcare Providers

Even before the pandemic, burnout among healthcare providers had become highly problematic, given the rise of chronic illnesses and a rapidly aging population. COVID-19 exacerbated these issues, requiring many healthcare providers to come out of retirement during the initial stages. Expanding the pool of providers during emergency situations is paramount, as is providing the physical and emotional support systems necessary to ensure that providers can deliver a high level of quality care to patients in need. Burnout is a specifically recognized occupational phenomenon by the World Health Organization (WHO), comprising chronic stress, fatigue, negative feelings toward one's work, and reduced professional capacity (Sharifi et al., 2020). Physical shortages of equipment such as PPE, ventilators, and other necessary tools to treat COVID-19 also remain a factor, but having adequately trained healthcare providers to use such equipment is equally critical.

Nursing shortages existed even before COVID-19. The pandemic introduced additional stressors, including the need for providers to supervise children during virtual schooling and the risk of falling ill with COVID-19 themselves. Initially, healthcare providers reported greater public appreciation during the earlier phases of the pandemic than they had experienced previously (Sharifi et al., 2020).

Gradually, however, this appreciation was replaced by pushback from pandemic-fatigued patients and their families, as well as hostility resulting from the politicization of the pandemic—driving healthcare providers to quit in record numbers. Hiring more employees, recruiting temporary staff from out of state, and offering on-site therapy are all ways to provide more immediate support to providers. Effective management of schedules to reduce pressure on providers to work back-to-back shifts, overtime, and night shifts is also necessary to reduce fatigue and burnout.

Conclusion: A Two-Pronged Approach

As a healthcare manager, addressing the current crisis requires a two-pronged approach. First, staffing shortages—both in the long and short term—must be addressed to ensure patients continue to receive quality care. This is also important for reducing the likelihood of future crises caused by provider burnout and overwhelming patient numbers. Second, the hospital must lead a vocal effort in pro-vaccination campaigns, both to protect staff and to reduce the likelihood of recurring crisis situations. Vaccination is an important element of reducing the spread of all communicable diseases and many non-communicable ones as well.

References

Khaliq, A. A. (2018). Managerial epidemiology: Principles and applications. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett.

Knowles, H., & Beachum, L. (2022). Some GOP leaders are scornful or silent about booster shots seen as key to fighting Omicron. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/04/booster-shots-governors-republican/

Pilishvili, T., Gierke, R., Fleming-Dutra, K. E., Farrar, J. L., Mohr, N. M., Talan, D. A., Krishnadasan, A., Harland, K. K., Smithline, H. A., Hou, P. C., Lee, L. C., Lim, S. C., Moran, G. J., Krebs, E., Steele, M. T., Beiser, D. G., Faine, B., Haran, J. P., Nandi, U., Schrading, W. A., … Vaccine Effectiveness Among Healthcare Personnel Study Team. (2021). Effectiveness of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine among U.S. health care personnel. The New England Journal of Medicine, 385(25), e90.

Salvador-Carulla, L., Rosenberg, S., Mendoza, J., Tabatabaei-Jafari, H., & Pandemic-Mental Health International Network. (2020). Rapid response to crisis: Health system lessons from the active period of COVID-19. Health Policy and Technology, 9(4), 578–586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2020.08.011

Sharifi, M., Asadi-Pooya, A. A., & Mousavi-Roknabadi, R. S. (2020). Burnout among healthcare providers of COVID-19: A systematic review of epidemiology and recommendations. Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine, 9(1), e7. https://doi.org/10.22037/aaem.v9i1.1004