PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The coronavirus pandemic is having a long-term impact on hospitals, which are suffering from their own form of long COVID.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association Health Forum highlights many of the key issues. The biggest issue is staffing and the loss of highly trained individuals — nurses, therapists and other providers — from the workforce.
In a good year, many hospitals have financial issues, but now they are trying to overpay and are still having problems with recruitment. A key issue here is that a significant number of those who have left health care jobs did so for reasons that had little to do with money. The report goes into heavy detail.
In addition, for those who remain to care for patients, the increased workload is causing another wave to leave, which some fear will hurt quality and safety. For obvious reasons, mistakes need to be avoided in health care.
KYW Newsradio’s Medical Reports are sponsored by Independence Blue Cross.