The question of how and when to re-open businesses in the United States in the wake of COVID-19 is fraught with a multitude of economic, political, and often emotional decisions. Central to this debate is how to and when to resume delivering traditional healthcare services that has been retooled to manage the COVID-19 surge or on standby hoping the surge never happens. As the hospitals prepared for a deluge of critically ill patients, most placed elective procedures on hold, reallocated resources and reduced capacity to manage the surge of highly infectious patients in acute respiratory distress.
Today as our nation seems better equipped to manage cases of COVID-19, more and more hospitals and healthcare systems are looking to resume elective services. However, restarting a healthcare system requires more than managing ICU beds and ventilators. It requires returning emergency departments and surgical services to full capacity while supporting a full complement of ancillary services and personnel.
In collaboration with Peter Pronovost who is a MacArthur Fellow, Author of Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out and the Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at University Hospital, Edgility Cognitive Healthcare is releasing the Readiness Toolkit, a checklist to assist health systems to assess, align and act on critical requirements in preparation for resuming post-COVID-19 operations. The list includes foundational components applicable to all provider types as well as elements for hospitals, ambulatory practices, population health, quality, and financial and business.
This checklist is designed to systematize newer models of operations, such as tele-health, systems operations and command center, remote and home monitoring protocols into data-to-day operations.
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