Should I Have Elective Surgery in the Pandemic?
Patients must balance the chance of a life-threatening Covid-19 exposure against the opportunity for relief from a condition that may be painful but is not considered urgent.
Credit.Gracia Lam
Dec. 21, 2020
With the Covid-19 pandemic raging across the country, many people hoping to undergo elective surgery can expect their operations to be on hold indefinitely. Hospitals in many places are at or near bed capacity and facing staff shortages. Even facilities still able to handle operations not considered urgent are likely to experience cancellations when patients themselves, fearing contagion, postpone the procedures.
The COVID-19 era has supercharged what had been, for many providers, a sluggish shift toward digital health and health care leaders say that even with a pandemic off-ramp in sight, the virtual overhaul of the country’s health care system will continue in 2021 and beyond as many consumers embrace the new services.
With non-urgent care grinding to a halt this spring and a main source of hospital revenue vanishing almost overnight, federal regulators gave their blessing for health systems to get creative to ensure patients could see their doctors. Overwhelmingly, that meant health care went virtual: By September, telehealth services made up about 5 percent of private medical claims, up from 0.16 percent a year earlier, a 2,980 percent increase.
More than 5,000 healthcare professionals convened virtually this week for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement s
The Boston-based organization s annual forum is the largest healthcare improvement event held in the country and draws educational session presenters and keynote speakers from around the world. This year s event covered a range of topics, including quality improvement, health equity, population heath, patient safety, joy in work, and telemedicine.
HealthLeaders attended several educational sessions, which included the following three big ideas.
1. Ensuring successful adoption of quality improvement initiatives
Chris Hayes, MD, MSc, MEd, a former IHI fellow and chief medical information officer at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, presented an educational session on strategies to ensure that quality improvement improves joy in work.