Respond to at least one peer by supporting agreement or polite disagreement and adding additional information and ideas to further the discussion.( write me up a paragraph responding to this post below ).
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a strain on U.S. Healthcare providers. Hospitals, primary care providers and other public health facilities have become overworked, overwhelmed, and underfunded. An analysis of Social Determinants of Health and quality assessment are discussed here.
The Role of Social Determinants of Health
There are many social determinants of health (SDOH) associated with the Covid-19 outbreak. Primary SDOH in the Covid-19 outbreak are socio-economic status and race. Neighborhoods predominantly populated with people of color tend to already have less equitable access to resources (Melvin el al., 2020). The healthcare facilities in these environments often face high provider-to-patient workloads, minimal access to resources. Once the Covid-19 epidemic occurred, these healthcare facilities were particularly subjected to increased fatigue and health care worker shortages.
In an effort to address the lack of resources and patient overload, the Provider Relief Fund was passed that generated 178 billion dollars to be paid to healthcare providers. These funds were intended to prioritize the disadvantaged and overwhelmed health care providers that are particularly affected by the social determinants of health (YouTube, 2020). The Provider Relief Fund intended to disperse, at minimum, 100,000 dollars to health care facilities. Unfortunately, Berklan, 2020 reported that due to the covid-19 epidemic, some facilities are spending nearly 2,600 dollars per day on PPE alone. This means that the Provider Relief Fund potentially helps with costs for a total of one month. This is not considering the additional cost for labor, testing and treatment. Many hospitals have attempted to streamline their processes to account for increased provider-to-patient workloads. Hospitals have diverted non-covid-19 related traumas and care to neighboring hospitals while designated a central location for al covid-19 care (University Health, 2021). It would be advantageous for the public health and health care field to work together regardless of provider network or insurance reimbursement. The Covid-19 pandemic has incited a public health crisis that must be responded to with additional monetary funding for providers, as well as a streamlined process to help alleviate provider fatigue.
Quality of the Health Service
Quality of health service is a substantial issue in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Resources suggest by promoting the implementation of telehealth services to patients, that it could improve the quality of care they would otherwise receive in-person (French et al., 2020). This hints at systemic inequity and social determinants of health as well, however, due to the fact that many at-risk populations cannot afford, or do not have access to, technology (Anderson & Kumar, 2019).
Additionally, with the quickly evolving status of the covid-19 pandemic, it has proven difficult for researchers to gather data regarding quality (Austin & Kachalia, 2020). It has been challenging to gather sufficient data and implement necessary changes when the data is obsolete by the time it is ready to be shared.
Quality Improvement
A quality improvement mechanism that could be utilized among healthcare systems is that of peer review. The feedback from fellow healthcare providers could potentially create an ever-evolving environment that promotes quality. It would be beneficial, in contradiction with most peer-review processes, to ensure that the process is not conducted secretively (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2020). At a time where the epidemic changes so quickly, it does not serve anyone to beat-around-the-bush, so to speak. The mechanism of risk management could also prove to be useful among health care providers. This type of quality measurement is especially useful when considering non-physician staff (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2020).
