| As the health care system dug in for a long battle with Covid-19, most executives last week were grappling with decisions not only about day-to-day operations— securing PPEs, Building temporary capacity, supporting staff, for example—but also how their hospitals would carry on after the epidemic starts to ebb (at least for now). In the short term, the biggest priority for most leaders was securing enough ICU capacity to accommodate the expected surge in patients. And they definitely delivered. In the space of a week, most jurisdictions were able to significantly narrow the gap in needed ICU capacity by building out thousands of temporary beds in sites ranging from hotels to dorms to convention centers. In fact, I can report that significant progress was indeed made on every front—manufacturing for PPE and vents, testing and processing capacity, and clinical trials for treatments and vaccines all made big strides forward, even if the earliest-hit cities would have liked to have seen them a couple of weeks ago. Challenges remain on all fronts, but providers are (a bit) more confident that as we hopefully approach peak hospitalisation (at least for the season), they should have the capacity and supplies they need. Increasingly, the questions from across the sector are focused on the post-Covid world. How do we address patient flow for both Covid-19 positive and negative patients? How will this crisis impact the drive to control costs? What will this mean for telehealth? How will support services adapt to the new changes? what facility improvements will the healthcare require? |
