Open AccessCOVID-19 and a Window into Healthcare Providers’ Resiliency
Author(s) -
Jason M. Sutherland
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
healthcare policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.391
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1715-6580
pISSN - 1715-6572
DOI - 10.12927/hcpol.2021.26503
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , health care , surge capacity , medicine , business , nursing , economic growth , virology , economics , disease , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology
As contemporaneous data emerge from publicly funded healthcare providers, the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to measure their resiliency. Resiliency matters because it connotes a higher level of confidence in being able to provide needed healthcare during times of health, social or environmental stress or calamity. At the beginning of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, there were warnings regarding hospitals' ability to successfully manage large surges of critically ill COVID-19 patients who were expected to soon be presenting at hospitals in every province and territory. Shortly thereafter, hospitals implemented policies to clear hospital beds - there were public reports that hospitals rapidly went from nearly full occupancy to below 50% (CIHI 2020a; Howlett 2020; Zeidler 2020).