What Effect has the COVID Pandemic had Upon Healthcare? 

The COVID 19 pandemic started to effect healthcare in January 2020. It fundamentally changed lives and careers and the caregiving landscape during 2020 and 2021. Caregiving evolved, with families increasingly choosing at-home care versus facility-based care for those with medical issues. What happened?

Healthcare Staffing Changed

Numerous essential healthcare and service workers left their jobs and stayed at home. Some worked remotely. Some put working on hold or retired.  That created a shortage of support and healthcare professionals. Those who continued working during the pandemic got overworked and burnt out. That’s now called The Great Resignation.

Family members were at home more and unexpectedly became caregivers. Family caregivers figured out caregiving challenges as they arose, often with an internet search.

Students of nursing, therapy and other medical caregiving professions missed out on the hands on clinical training of their education. Training programs  turned to remote and virtual learning during the 2020 lockdown phase of the pandemic.

Medical and nursing students received waivers to begin working before they were fully licensed.

Healthcare staffing decreased as workers became ill, became family teachers and caregivers, at home.

In 2021, healthcare staffing was marked by a shortage of direct care providers such as certified nursing assistants and home health aides. There was a lack of staff for kitchen, laundry and housekeeping departments.

Professional staff were asked to  work outside of their prescribed clinical roles to support the reception desk, laundry or storage room by doing the tasks of missing essential workers.

Staff took their own temperatures and performed weekly COVID swabs. They were covered in plastic from head to toe. Burnout became an issue. 

Discharge Planning Changed

For patients that received hospital, rehabilitation and nursing home care, discharge planning was foremost on their minds. Everyone was eager to get home and out of the hospital. One study showed that only 50% of Medicare Part A patients returned to their home or community due to the effects of COVID. Hospitals were reimbursed at a higher rate if a patient had COVID.

Rehabilitation Changed

Caregiver training for families was typically a focus of rehab and therapy but it became more urgent during the pandemic due to rehab stays complicated by quarantine. Patients in rehab, by definition, are acutely and often chronically ill. Hospitals and other medical facilities adjusted to new ways of doing business and caring for patients. Suddenly there was a greater need for in home care with agencies understaffed for the change.

COVID in 2020-2022

In 2020 the United Hospital Fund (UHF) surveyed patients recently discharged to home. Their findings indicated that “transitions of care continue to demand far greater attention”. Performance fell short in areas of understanding medication and in providing for equipment and social needs such as food, housing, transportation and affordable care.  Clearly the families were providing care that they were underprepared for.

Caregiver Training

Caregiver training in the rehabilitation and nursing home sector shifted in 2020 to remote interaction with family members via phone calls, text messages, photos and video calls.

In the skilled nursing and rehabilitation setting families were asked to provide photos of the patients’ expected discharge environment to help with discharge recommendations.

Visual information became most important for adapting the home and training the family for an optimal home discharge.

Remote interaction worked well on both ends. Getting a family member to take photos of the patient’s home was relatively easy using smart phones and email.

Pandemic Health Care

Healthcare shifted away from institutions and into the home. Virtual home safety consultation is now an important, socially distanced way to teach a caregiver how to create a home environment that promotes health, safety and quality of life. Virtual healthcare is here to stay.

The Informed Caregiver is here to help with providing high quality at home care using a socially distanced, virtual consultation format that was born during the COVID 19 crisis.