Covid-19 has changed healthcare in countless ways. For more than a decade, it has greatly accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, and along a similar route, it has allowed us to rethink what aspects of healthcare we hope to retain, change, or introduce in the post-Covid world. Regardless of what will eventually happen to this multifaceted industry we are in, one thing I believe will undoubtedly change is the way patients feel about the hospital and how they participate.
Covid-19 showed us information about the hospital
It may seem effortless to say it, but the role of hospitals is to take care of the most seriously ill patients. These patients need resources that only hospitals can provide: emergency departments, experts, and the ability to treat patients immediately and comprehensively. But when the pandemic suspended elective surgery and appointments, we saw how much “extra” care the hospital provided because we saw how much of it must be temporarily eliminated.
It reveals what kind of facility is best for a range of care issues that patients may need, whether it is in a hospital, surgery center, primary care office, or in the home of visiting medical staff or through telemedicine. The situation created by Covid has made this problem the focus of patients, providers, insurance companies, governments, and other regulatory agencies-a difficult task at any other “normal” time.
As all these stakeholders think about this issue in new ways, we realize that we are all on the same page: our goal is to bring better results to patients. As technology enables us to do more and people have better access to more experts and care pathways, we should evaluate the best method for each patient and care situation so that they can achieve the best results.
This whole situation raises the question, “What is the best way to classify patient load? Do hospitals need to be large campuses worth billions of dollars? Can they be more professional and easier to understand? For each village or In urban communities, the answers to these questions are different, and a lot of experiments and innovations will be carried out for the best solution in each situation.
Telemedicine and home medical care also have their limitations
When weighing all the different care models currently available to patients, risks and limitations need to be as important as benefits, and these shortcomings can range from serious safety issues to mere convenience and efficiency issues.
For home healthcare, does the travel time between patients make sense for a large number of healthy patients who can reasonably leave home for treatment? If you consider the efficiency of seeing 50 patients in the primary care office every day, and if the doctors travel from house to house, it may not be a dozen. But for patients who are going to the emergency room and then face long hospitalizations and expensive bills, this may make sense. As experiments are carried out in different communities, this route may benefit both patients and providers in the long run.
The same is true for remote care-there is a suitable place and time. The problem is to find the boundary between where it is most effective and where it is insufficient. How do we develop a large-scale system that helps us quickly determine when we need to let patients into the physical space, or when we can simply send them a link to let them log in at home and see a doctor. There are healthcare professionals and startups that are working on these types of issues, and it will ebb and flow until the right balance is reached.
Emerging opportunities (and barriers)
If we want to see real innovation in the healthcare industry, navigating different healthcare models and models is just one of the problems.
Another big area that has matured is the hospital’s medical reimbursement method. Moving to a value-based care system, we focus more on treatment outcomes, which will significantly change the way hospitals operate and the way patients participate in the healthcare process. There are so many entrenched players, so moving the needle in this area is difficult. There is another fact to consider. The hospital is already a billion-dollar community and a lot of money has been invested. Therefore, when innovation occurs, it is undoubtedly frightening that they consider how to still cash in their past investment capital. How they will continue to spend in the future is uncertain, but if they do allow themselves to adapt and innovate, it will be results and cost effective by establishing the specific needs and uses of each community and helping to provide care in the most suitable environment.
We can see a worse situation-in some cases, unfortunately, we are already in this situation-the elimination of care or access becomes more difficult. Rural hospitals are closing at an unprecedented rate. So how can we provide care to these communities and support hospital systems that may feel isolated? I hope there is a way to reimagine the future, for patient care, the workforce of these communities, and public health.
I imagine one way to fight isolation or eliminate the phenomenon of care—especially in rural communities—is through a new understanding of cooperation. Take the dental and medical industries as examples. Historically, they are separate. But do they need it? When we already have patient contact points at the dentist, can we provide opportunities for medical care? Oral health affects other medical care for patients, so the idea of integration should not be too far-fetched. It only needs to change the way of thinking of decision makers who have long viewed the healthcare sector in the same way. This collaborative concept can drive a lot of conversations about new medical models and how hospitals use them.
If we can make people rethink how we identify and solve the pain points of patients — whether it’s transportation, access to care, or finding the right specialist — we can inject new vitality into how patients interact with their care and let everyone There is a better chance to achieve the best patient outcome.
All of this has to do with the right participants—whether they are senior healthcare workers or new start-ups and venture capital firms entering the field—they are willing to tap a niche market, solve that niche market, and then See what else their solutions might apply. Understanding the changes in hospitals during Covid-19 is the starting point for solving many of the larger problems in the healthcare industry.
Photo: elenabs, Getty Images
