Steeling for the next surge

In some aspects, there’s no more certainty about the future of health care than there was a few months ago before COVID-19 arrived. While handling the immediate needs of patients and providers, the industry also has stepped back to take stock of its ability to initiate changes and direct money to projects where consumer behavior is demanding more urgent action — think the broad implementation of telehealth and a greater shift to home health services for aging adults.

Many consumers are still keeping their distance from their health care as the pandemic drags on, both by switching to telehealth or by postponing or altogether abandoning needed care. But when activity returns to normal in a post-COVID environment, the hospitals they visit will likely look different in several ways. It quickly became clear this spring that hospitals across the country were not prepared for a health crisis on the scale of the pandemic and that change is needed if the nation’s health care system is to better respond to similar events in the future.