Health Services Management

Health Services Management and COVID-19

We’ve been hearing a lot about the important roles that frontline clinicians are playing in this pandemic. We want to spotlight some of the important work health care managers are taking on as hospitals work to surge their capacity and long-term care communities work to protect their residents. The virus is expected to infect a substantial proportion of Hoosiers—and as a result there will be an increase in the use of hospital and medical services. Many health services managers are heavily involved in implementing emergency plans that were previously developed to guide the organization through the unusual circumstance. Below is a small example of the many critical roles that health services managers are currently playing.

Health services mangers are:

• Communicating with clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders regarding how the organization is planning to ramp up for the influx of patients—and answering questions and concerns of employees.
• Making sure that their facility is stocked with all of the equipment and supplies needed to support providers and patients.
• Leveraging technology, including telemedicine, to connect patients with clinicians—especially virtually—to promote social distancing and prompt medical attention.
• Hiring and onboarding additional clinical staff to meet the increasing demand and updating human resource policies (e.g., vacation time, paid time off, shift durations) to maximize the organizations response to the crisis.
• Solving problems that could affect the success of the organization’s COVID response. For example, rapidly setting up shelters to safely care for the children of workers who otherwise would be unable to report to work.
• Coordinating with local authorities and providing information on staffing levels, the number of patients treated, and the amount of resources in stock so that regional sharing of personnel and equipment can assure that everyone possible could be treated.