Healthcare was in trouble before COVID-19 became a pandemic. Coronavirus merely amplified the magnitude of the threats the industry faces. Now, the historically slow-to-adapt business must somehow cope with internal and external threats made more dire by dwindling financial resources and a virulent, emergent disease. American physicians, and their willingness to lead and evolve their industry, have a vital role to play. Here are seven of the greatest threats to the healthcare business in 2021, and what physicians can do about them. Lost revenue For better or worse, healthcare is a business, and businesses can’t operate without capital. In June, the American Hospital Association (AHA) projected that American hospitals and healthcare systems would lose $323 billion in 2020. The AHA report said these institutions lost an average of $20.1 billion monthly, caused by lower patient volumes. Revenue declines left many physicians permanently or temporarily out of work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated a 5.4% unemployment rate in the healthcare industry in August. As of November, the figure stood at 3.4%. Physicians can address this threat by communicating publicly and privately—with their patients, friends, and families—about COVID-19. While vaccines are being administered, it will be months before we reach herd immunity. In the interim, dis- and misinformation will continue to proliferate. Furthermore, patients will continue to jeopardize their own health by forgoing routine care for existing conditions. Whether online or in person, physicians have the opportunity to communicate authoritatively and effectively about health at a time when quality information is scarce. Virtualization Telehealth is a blessing and a curse for healthcare. It’s a blessing in the sense that it kept healthcare consumers and providers connected during a time when physical proximity was dangerous. It’s a curse in the sense that most of us are increasingly living our lives online, and not in the flesh. At its roots, medicine is a hands-on practice and for better or worse, technology and circumstances have placed greater physical distance between physicians and patients. For example, think about how many times you see a patient and don’t actually touch them. It begs the question, has medicine become too detached, too process-oriented, and not people-oriented? This is a deep-rooted problem, one that we’re not going to solve with a few hundred words in a 1,000-word post. It’s reasonable to believe that the trough of the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a peak of a mental health epidemic. Physicians have a vital role to play here by mindfully putting people, not processes, into the heart of their practices. In the coming months and years, people will need to feel a healing, human connection. Security Remember when we said healthcare was slow to adapt? Take big data, for example. It’s a concept that only went mainstream in healthcare within the past five years. Meanwhile, it’s propelled companies like Amazon and Facebook toward exponential growth. Healthcare is late to the digital party, which also means it’s late to the dangers posed by cybersecurity threats. Along comes a pandemic, and healthcare is forced to embrace digital solutions pell-mell and at a breakneck pace. And out come the hackers. HIPAA Journal reports that between September and August 2020, there was a 156% increase in data breaches of HIPAA-covered entities. Luckily, this is one area where doctors can make a few technical changes to ensure greater security. The first thing they can do is actually read all of the security updates emailed by their employers’ IT departments. These might include notifications about phishing scams or other traps to avoid. The second basic thing doctors can do is improve their password security. Google Chrome, for example, has a built-in secure password generator that you can use. That way you only have to remember one password, your Google password. Make it something that isn’t easily guessed—a mix of letters (upper and lowercase), numbers, and punctuation marks or symbols. Here are some more tips on secure password generation. Supply chain One of the most salient lessons from the coronavirus pandemic was the vulnerability of the US medical supply chain. No physician will forget PPE scarcity. And now, as we watch the glacial pace of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, we’re seeing the limits of our supply distribution as well. Supply-chain logistics is another area where healthcare has been slow to adapt. A recent report from the consulting firm PWC suggests that healthcare should take cues from other industries, including tech and automotive, to be more flexible. “Where possible, the health system is expected to begin to triangulate supply chain risks, knowing as much as possible about their suppliers’ suppliers and establishing new collaborations to secure the supply chain through diverse geographies and sourcing materials,” PWC wrote. “Take a cue from tech or automakers—apply a dual sourcing strategy to add redundancy without disrupting established networks.” This is another arena in which communication will serve physicians well. Nobody has a better idea of what the supply situation is on the ground than physicians and other healthcare workers. Doctors and others on the frontlines also need to communicate frequently and clearly about what their needs are. Residency teaches you to grin and bear it, but that attitude, though admirable, will not help solve this problem. Source
