How the COVID-19 pandemic changed the Healthcare space

 

The worst of environmental degradation or even the biggest of asteroid collision couldn’t do what the invisible-to-the-human eye Novel Corona Virus of 2019 could do. It flattened the earth in its entirety, bringing the whole of humanity to a single place and pushing them back into dark ages.

Still reeling under the fear (yes, more fear) of an imminent impact, humanity has changed for both the better and the worse in quite a few ways that include ways in which healthcare shall henceforth be administered. While the likes of work-from-home, buy-at-home (e-commerce), no-contact buying, selling and so on are expected given the need to maintain certain distances, they have left their tell-tale signs and effects in the medicines and healthcare (and related) industries. The more prominent changes worth noting include:

• Focus shifted to treating symptoms at patients’ homes or dedicated facilities

Prior to the pandemic’s bulldozing most hospitals and healthcare facilities worldwide, the norm was at best to admit patients within the hospital if home could not suffice or was insufficient to handle certain medical conditions. With the pandemic overwhelming most hospitals and appearing to be the breeding grounds for the virus, newer forms of remote treatments came to the fore for the first time, with the prominent ones including shifting patients to specially created facilities, either close to or at a distance from the main hospital and treating even confirmed covid patients in the confines of their home once their condition stabilized. Going forward, out-patient could be the norm with the availability of 3^rd party nursing staff from independent registered sources. This could be an enormous help to the healthcare facility by letting them treat only the most critical of cases.

• Immunization before the spread has been taken to be more important than general health
• Online & remote consultation is today an established norm
• More emphasis on people’s mental health
• Increase in the use of IoT-enabled wearables