The Way of Access to Quality Healthcare during the Pandemic Elle Pierre Walden University NURS 6053, Interprofessional Organizational and Systems Leadership September

The Way of Access to Quality Healthcare during the Pandemic Elle Pierre Walden University NURS 6053, Interprofessional Organizational and Systems Leadership September

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed some prolific underlying healthcare concerns within our healthcare systems. In doing so, the epidemic helps us reform the healthcare system to face this pandemic and other significant pandemic in the future. Although the U.S. healthcare system is not expected to perform at their peak during a crisis, many unforeseen challenges have become visible. For instance, many hospitals were faced with a lack of personal protective equipment (Ranney & School, 2020). Plus, insufficient healthcare insurance coverage, especially to financially vulnerable populations, has proven to be a pitfall for many individuals. Plus, many individuals did not have access to the healthcare provider, and many healthcare facilities were suffering from inadequate staffing leading to significant safety concerns for the patients (CDC, 2020). The covid19 pandemic has revealed many notable areas in our healthcare system that needs improvement to ensure safe and adequate patient care are being provided. Impact on our Organization The beginning of the pandemic had revealed some obvious concern to us. Our healthcare organization does not stockpile sufficient personal protective equipment in many of our facilities. Furthermore, there was a critical need for ventilators and much life-saving medicine. Adequate production and distribution of those types of equipment are crucial to caring for patients during the pandemic. Unfortunately, many healthcare patients' and families paid the price for those shortcomings. Many healthcare preparedness programs have started to examine the data and analyze different preparedness strategies to fix these issues, so they won't reoccur (John & Zallman, 2020). According to Healthy People 2020 (n.d) to have access to healthcare, an individual need to gain to a healthcare system through an insurance group, they need to have access to that provider through a location, and it needs to be a healthcare provider that they trust.

3 Running head: PERTINENT HEALTH CARE ISSUE As a result of this pandemic, there was a surge in unemployment that exceeded 20 million workers (Blumenthal, Fowler & Colins, 2020).This, unfortunately, has caused many employers to lose their employer-sponsored healthcare insurance. As our population continues to age, many individuals live with chronic illnesses that need to be managed by healthcare providers frequently (Blumenthal, Fowler & Colins, 2020).Some of those patients have to follow up with a cardiologist, psychiatrist, or nephrologist. As a result of the pandemic, many of those specialty clinics have significantly reduced personal appointments. Many of them have started to conduct telehealth appointments. Many of the patients have lack insurance access and loss of accessibility to a computer. Many of them have resorted to the ER to be seen by an ER physician instead of following with their physicians. This has caused a profound financial loss to many providers (Blumenthal, Fowler & Colins, 2020).Furthermore, it has threatened many Physician offices' viability, especially those who were already financially vulnerable. Furthermore, the covid19 pandemic had shown us how to understaff our healthcare system is. Maintaining appropriate is essential to provide a safe work environment for the staff and ensure safe, adequate care. In our organization, we were already short-staffed, to begin with. However, once the pandemic has started, many employees were exposed to the virus and had to take some time off. Others had to take care of family members at home that was exposed to the illness. How other Organization Addressed the Issue Unfortunately, many neighboring healthcare organizations are faced with similar issues. Many other healthcare organizations experienced a shortage of protective personal equipment and ventilators, and many of them instilled specific protocols to help mitigate the pandemic's effect (Ranney & School, 2020). For example, many hospitals had resorted to their staff re-using

4 Running head: PERTINENT HEALTH CARE ISSUE the N95; others had reusable gown. Furthermore, the team was provided with a face shield and disinfecting wipes to clean the face shield after using them with each patient appropriately. Plus, many hospitals had started to borrow ventilators machines in other areas that were not yet affected by the virus (Ranney & School, 2020). They provided quick learning courses to the ICU staff on how to properly use these to critical tools. The temporary fix provided to many healthcare facilities helps many overcome the significant hurdle the pandemic has caused. Regarding staffing issues, many healthcare systems hired travel nurses to help them with the staffing problem (CDC, 2020). The human resource department and the occupational health nurses in many healthcare organizations use several traveling agencies to help mitigate the problem (CDC, 2020). This strategy allowed the