The COVID-19 pandemic has crashed economies, separated people from their workplaces, disrupted the normal living, suffused hospitals, and cleared public places. It has created an intolerable pressure on the health care system which is facing acute shortages of beds and other medical equipment. The pandemic has caused an unimaginable shift in the demand for hospital services. Patients are waiting in gurneys along the walls of hospitals for a bed in the general wards or even in the intensive care units.
To tackle this surge in the number of patients, hospitals are making crucial decisions on who should be given the bed first. They are discharging people as soon as possible to make the beds available for people long waiting. Provision of care at home through telemedicine is on a rise but it can be used only for stable outpatients.
Researchers at Northeastern University have analysed how hospitals are making difficult decisions when considering how to care for patients in need amidst the shortage of resources. Age and pre-existing conditions play a major role in deciding whether to hospitalise a patient or not. As older people are more prone to the resulting complications of the illness, they are the first ones to be admitted to the intensive care units. Studies also show that underlying health issues such as diabetes and hypertension make the recovery difficult due to pre-existing damages to integral organs. Therefore, they constitute a significant part of the number of patients admitted.
Appropriate supply chain strategies and management practices are needed to optimise the scarce resources and elevate the capacity quickly. Demand management along with effective strategies to manage the supply of resources is not an easy task especially in case of highly contagious diseases like COVID-19, but it has now become crucial as lacking on either of the parts can trigger this vicious cycle.
Kriti Vishwakarma