The Impacts of COVID-19 on Access and Disclosure of Health Information

The Impacts of Covid-19 on Access and Disclosure of Health Information
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The Impacts of Covid-19 on Access and Disclosure of Health Information
Theme: If the nation faces another lockdown or future pandemic, how can the organizations be better prepared? Are there further issues that need to be addressed?
Introduction
Since the overwhelming majority of hospitals were uninformed and unprepared for such an emergency, the sudden onset of the COVID 19 pandemic significantly hampered their ability to perform. Lack of resources and a strategy for emergency preparedness in reaction to the COVID 19 pandemic crisis has been highlighted as the issue at the clinical practice location. In general, a pandemic crisis is described as the dynamic spread of a virus through human contact across nations (Griffin et a., 2020). Observations made on the ground show that skilled care institutions lack a pandemic management plan and a strategy for handling life-or-death emergencies. The unregulated patient admission and treatment processes, as well as the discrepancies in care delivery, were caused by a lack of policy. Due to the disorganized facilities and insufficient action plan, a large number of patients were also unable to receive the essential care. It is crucial to start by evaluating the facilities of emergency and training personnel on how to handle and manage a crisis since nurses are required to handle the pandemic crisis.
How Healthcare Organizations can be Better Preprepared for a Future Pandemic.
* Strengthening Manufacturing
COVID-19 and other previous pandemics have demonstrated that the concept of charity vaccine transfers from wealthy nations is ineffective. Due to the fact that high-income nations have access to the majority of the supply while low-income nations receive relatively little, there is vaccination inequality. The vulnerability of vaccine manufacturing was exposed by COVID-19. It is necessary to waive intellectual property rights, establish factories, and educate workers for them—often in low-resource environments—in order to increase local manufacturing capability. Due to the private sector's involvement in vaccine development, manufacturing, and distribution, it is essential that governments and the business sector work together on this.
* Preparing Vaccines for Rapid Production
Being vaccinated is crucial to preventing viral pandemics. Its crucially important that governments embark on preparing vaccines as they prepare for a future pandemic. Having enough supply will ensure that they can be able to meet the demand as it arises. In order to stimulate a widespread immune response, universal vaccinations that combine flu strains are currently undergoing clinical testing. Scientists are developing plug-and-play technical platforms, such as mRNA technology or viral vectors, that may be swiftly adjusted to address a specific new hazard in order to defend against risks that we are unaware of prior to an epidemic.
* Inclusion of Modern Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Monitoring Pandemics
A future pandemic might be fought using a variety of measures. In order to track and promptly report a pandemic spread, worldwide healthcare must heavily rely on contemporary technologies like smartphones, satellite maps, and the like. Therefore, new approaches to immunization, therapy, and diagnostics must be the primary focus of improvements in biological and medical research. With the pandemic, the present technologies are being challenged in addition to the difficulties being identified. Artificial intelligence is one of the most interesting areas in this situation. Some experts contend that gathering data now might aid in preventing future occurrences of that kind (Alimadadi et al.,2020). This illness seems to highlight what's crucial and aid in identifying what could be practical within the given conditions. It tests every aspect of life and reveals which areas require development. Both now and in the future, epidemics will require artificial intelligence. It may be possible for AI to forecast the likelihood of infection by looking at a person's lifestyle and social media accounts. Also, it helps to enlighten individuals with chatbot messages that contain the most recent news and information (Moideen, 2018). Artificial intelligence is a technique to simplify and automate activities during the epidemic and make this time more comfortable for thousands of people.
* Restructuring the Healthcare System
Restructuring the healthcare system in line with military guidelines is yet another crucial step toward reaching worldwide preparedness. As a result, the health sector should be organized similarly to how the army is. The military, according to Bill Gates, has "full time waiting to go" personnel, "reserves that can ramp up to massive numbers," and "a mobile force that can deploy very swiftly" (TED Talks, 2017). In other words, a globalized healthcare team has to include a variety of epidemiologists and doctors with the necessary education and expertise. Also, healthcare operations must follow the military's lead in terms of regular rehearsal and simulations to guarantee a quick reaction. Hence, Bill Gates successfully raises awareness of the issue of looming pandemics and the worldwide lack of preparedness. The instruments listed above are readily available today, and the proposed measures to be ready are doable. The sole requirement for guaranteeing readiness for any epidemics in the future, then, is the global community working in concert.
* Investing in Resilience to Threats
A common advice in the organizations is to invest in resilience to a pandemic or other external threats given that the majority of firms experienced financial losses as a result of the epidemic. The current state of affairs demonstrates that many businesses were not prepared for severe and sweeping changes, which resulted in large losses in their earnings or even insolvency. At the same time, the pandemic is still ongoing, and the virus can still spread further. As a result, each company's investment should be focused on sustainability, recession readiness, and a thorough risk assessment. As a nutshell, the pandemic has caused enormous changes for investors and businesses owing to high financial risks that have long-term repercussions, as seen by the present shifts in the economy and financial market.
* Improvement of Medical Infrastructure
For a number of reasons, the medical establishment was not prepared for this epidemic. Researchers even contend that the quality of care declined as a result of healthcare professionals' lack of awareness of what is happening (Bhagavathula et al., 2020). Nonetheless, this circumstance appears to be an excellent example for governments in all nations that medicine needs major adjustment. There should be additional facilities dedicated to treating infectious diseases, as well as specialized gear including protective gear and masks for the employees. In general, more funding is required since government hospitals cannot afford some vitally critical but very expensive medications. This pandemic had a significant impact on the healthcare sector and demonstrated the need for change. The amount of funding for labs, research centers, and experimental facilities must be included while evaluating the healthcare system. Analysis of the virus and comprehension of its true risk are always made simpler by better-equipped laboratories (Giesecke, 2017). Also, there is the issue of pay, the allure of the career, and the expertise of the experts. The government must offer free training sessions, educational opportunities, and the chance to participate in scholarly conferences to all researchers studying infectious illnesses. Both human resources and specialized equipment are needed to modernize laboratories and research facilities for studies and experiments.
* Eradication of Financing Constraints
Governments should ensure hospitals are adequately funded to be able to handle any future pandemics. The management of healthcare organizations and the difficulties in providing treatment are many. The growing expense of healthcare is one of the issues they deal with. The cost of healthcare is rising as the population ages and grows (Rother, 2017). Moreover, the prevalence of several chronic illnesses, such diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, has increased (Rother, 2017). As a result, healthcare administrators must deal with budgetary limitations while creating patient care budgets. For instance, some hospitals experience financial failure as a result of accepting a large number of patients with acute medical situations who have no insurance. Today's healthcare executives must manage both their institutions' tight budgets and the nation's soaring healthcare expenditures. Because healthcare costs have been growing i...