Lessons from The Covid19 Pandemic for Improving Healthcare Provision

The onset of Covid-19 saw many hospitals struggle to handle the large number of medical cases due to poor planning, lack of space, understaffing and general lack of knowledge on the way forward. The symptoms kept changing as the virus progressed, leaving medical practitioners unprotected and unable to save many of the critically affected patients.

As the world watched thousands of people die, discoveries were made to protect families and caregivers in and outside the hospitals. There were so many lessons that were learnt during the dark months of despair, desperation, selflessness and medical miracles that have shaped the medical field since that time. Some of these lessons are discussed below.

Lessons Learned from Covid-19 Pandemic Response

i. Prepare for increased demand for services

The influx of patients into hospitals highlighted the lack of preparedness for unexpected demand. Mostly, it was easy to deal with short stays compared to the high demand for ICUs and quarantine centres within hospitals to contain the spread of Covid. Additionally, medical practitioners including dialysis nurses, respiratory therapists and intensivist physicians were not enough to handle the large numbers nor could most of them offer the required care due to limited knowledge.

ii. Poor emotional support for healthcare workers

There was a disconnect between the public and healthcare workers on how they viewed the care provided to Covid-19 patients. To the public, these were people risking their lives to save the public in times of uncertainty, while to the workers this was a very heavy period in their lives. For instance, working in Covid-19 hot zones exposed them to a lot of vulnerabilities from their patients and families, they faced the fear of taking the virus back home to their families, and also dealt with feelings of guilt at not being able to save all their patients.

iii. Unnecessary documentation

The surge of patients with Covid-19 into emergency rooms and ICUs forced multiple electronic health record process improvements that reduced the burden of order entry and documentation. For instance, smart phrases that can embed common physical examination findings or treatment plans into a note with a few keystrokes and abbreviations of nursing and physician notes were implemented.

How Pulse is Improving Hospital Care and Health Care Delivery based on these Lessons

Pulse is the leading provider of AI-enhanced medical care focused on increasing the number of people across the globe who can keep up with the latest development in the medical field. The platform accumulates the latest diagnostic and pharmaceutical information and integrates it with expert knowledge from around the world, enhanced with AI to deliver the most advanced medical care to everyone.

As a resource, Pulse is improving hospital care in the following ways.

i. Use of smart contracts

Pulse uses smart contracts to automate administrative processes like billing, issuing and filling prescriptions and filing and receiving insurance claims to provide efficiency. Through technology, Pulse is able to reduce the amount of paperwork needed for patients to see health care providers as well as reduce waiting periods. Patients can therefore be admitted, discharged and offered medication more quickly, allowing hospitals to manage the number of patients at each station.

ii. Linking health information and clinical records

The revolutionary healthcare app, Pulse Pocket seamlessly links individual health information and clinical records to offer the health guidance that matches patients’ health conditions, while serving for the accumulation and integration of medical expertise, knowledge and medical records.

Using this app, healthcare workers could easily access patient’s progress from their homes, make decisions on who to be admitted and make medical discoveries on the virus based on the information from the app. Users across the globe would have access to the progress of the virus and reaction to drugs at the same time, allowing the virus to be contained faster.

iii. AI-aided diagnostic information

Pulse Records, another resource from Pulse allows every doctor to share clinical information. Medical records issued by medical societies are uploaded on the platform such that all medical practitioners can access the knowledge base from their terminals, record patient’s conditions as well as study the relevant information.

Therefore, it is easier to follow up on the disease and virus at each stage as well as have a reputable and secure medium through which all information can be shared and stored for future reference.

Conclusion

Covid-19 exposed the challenges faced by the healthcare industry and forced a lot of changes and adaptations in a short while in order to offer needed care for both patients and workers.

The Pulse platform is created to ensure users, both patients and healthcare practitioners, from any location across the globe are equipped with knowledge on diseases and how to manage them. The platform has a myriad of features created to serve the global population and make healthcare more accessible.