The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated pre-existing problems in the long-term care sector.
Read more “The COVID-19 pandemic and long-term care: what can we learn from the first wave about how to protect care homes?”
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a rapid rise in the use of remote consultations by telephone and video link.
Read more “Keeping what works: remote consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals face the concurrent challenges of maintaining routine services while attending to COVID-19 patients.
Read more “Restarting more routine hospital activities during COVID-19: approaches from six countries”
The COVID-19 pandemic has put health systems and their ability to deliver health care services under strain.
Read more “Managing health systems on a seesaw: balancing the delivery of essential health services whilst responding to COVID-19”
As the COVID-19 pandemic unravelled, hospitals had to deal with the often overwhelming need to treat patients exposed to the virus. To minimize exposure and maximize health workforce capacity, many hospitals postponed elective procedures and non-essential services.
Read more “How have countries restarted more routine hospital activities during the COVID-19 pandemic?”
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) (e.g. gloves, medical masks, goggles, etc.), and large disruptions in the global marketplace made it difficult for virtually all countries to obtain PPE for their own needs in the first months of the pandemic.
Read more “Who has regulatory responsibility for stocking PPE in ambulatory settings, and how does it work in practice?”
Providing appropriate emotional, financial and practical support to protect health workers’ mental health and wellbeing and enable them to do their job are crucial to delivering an effective COVID-19 response.
Read more “How are countries supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their health workforce?”
Policy-makers are currently facing the challenge of striking the right balance between two competing goals: ensuring adequate capacities to treat those affected by COVID-19 and providing services that are necessary to maintain the health of the population.
Read more “How are countries reorganizing non-COVID-19 health care service delivery?”
Digital health tools are playing a central role in responding to COVID-19; some are established tools, some are existing tools being used in new ways, and increasingly there is attention to developing specific new digital health tools to respond to the pandemic.
Read more “How are countries using digital health tools in responding to COVID-19?”
Health care providers need flexibility to be able to respond quickly to meet increased demand in the outbreak, to offer new methods of service delivery and to maintain essential health services for non-COVID-19 conditions. The way in which providers are paid can be an obstacle to these objectives.
Read more “What are countries doing to give providers flexibility to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak?”