Healthcare Systems

Summary

This section summarizes a three-phase health system response from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic that is reflexive and sustainable, delivers compassionate and competent care while optimizing capacity, and ensures patient and provider safety. This section highlights key findings and provides recommendations for response rollout and implementation.

The goal of this sector is to identify gaps and reconciliation in response to healthcare systems in the pre-pandemic, current pandemic, and post-pandemic phases to mitigate current effects from COVID-19 and avoidable consequences from future pandemics on the healthcare system.

Recommendations

• During the pre-pandemic phase, healthcare systems should designate a permanent interdisciplinary pandemic planning committee, develop and maintain up-to-date virus models and response scenarios, designate staff roles and cross-train staff, maintain routine communication among health system entities, and ensure adequate infrastructure, capacity, and resources.
• During the pandemic phase, healthcare systems should activate emergency management plans and establish an Incident Command Center (ICC) responsible for pandemic monitoring and subsequent appropriate health system adaptation, transition health system operations to a pandemic response model, ensure adaptive capacity, facilitate overflow care, provide transparent and frequent communication, and ensure financial recovery and ongoing health system sustainability.
• During the post-pandemic phase, healthcare systems should plan and coordinate the integration of national emergency preparedness, monitor and assess pandemic data, continue research on evolving strains of SARS-COV 2 with vaccine development, maintain continuity of healthcare provisions through the implementation of COVID-19 wards and expansion of telehealth and telemedicine programs, and provide transparent communications about ongoing decision making, health recommendations, and pandemic-related information.

Authors