Covid, hospitals, healthcare, resilience during the pandemic, and exiting the acute phase. The upcoming challenges for healthcare are already pressing even before we have fully emerged from the emergency.
Data from the analysis conducted by the National Agency for Regional Health Services (Agenas) together with the Management and Health Laboratory (MeS) of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna confirm the indirect effects of the pandemic. These data are alarming and worrying due to the consequences they will have in the coming months. Inevitable catastrophe? Perhaps not, but healthcare is certainly facing new threats once again.
Starting with the impressive decline in scheduled hospitalizations: between March and June 2020 in Italy, there was a reduction of -49.9% compared to the same months in 2019, a substantial halving with reductions of over -70% in some southern regions. Mammograms decreased by 30% nationwide, with reductions of 40% in Sardinia and Calabria, and 37% in the Autonomous Province of Trento, and a 22% decline in ischemic stroke hospitalizations, with reductions of 54% in Valle d’Aosta and almost 50% in Molise.
What to expect is an increase in hospitalizations due to missed prevention or worsening of existing conditions. This is the residual impact of Covid from which we must not be overwhelmed, and it is important to start thinking about a healthcare system capable of improving performance now. But how can we get back on track and ensure that services are no longer deferred? The answer lies in a rush of organizational and technological investments, lean tools that provide patients with concrete responses and healthcare staff with the opportunity to move out of a state of permanent emergency.
After every crisis, or rather after every war (and Covid certainly was one), there is a need for a change in paradigms and innovation in systems. The most modern structures have already responded to the difficulty of providing basic healthcare services by intensifying investments in process engineering, artificial intelligence in intensive care, data analysis, and the use of digital technologies in healthcare. All these tools have already confirmed their potential for improving not only care and therapeutic processes but, more importantly, the organizational and operational practices that affect and influence the entire system.
This trend is expected to grow in the future, in light of investment initiatives for healthcare, such as the European Next Generation EU program. How much time and resources can be saved with tools like improved management of operating rooms? How much can workload be reduced with active patient monitoring tools? How much can e-health help us in the coming months?
We believe there is much to be done, but we are confident that the residual impact will not overwhelm us.
