What Will the "New Normal" for Healthcare Be After COVID-19?

A fantastic piece by Australian writer Rosemary Ainley, who is living with multiple chronic illnesses, crystallizes some of the issues people all over the world have been facing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One important question she raises is this:

“For years, people with chronic conditions and disabilities have been asking for more flexible work and study options that would allow them the same access to opportunities as others. We were told that these things couldn’t be done. We couldn’t attend classes or meetings via video link even when the technology existed. We certainly couldn’t attend health appointments that way.

COVID-19 has changed all that.

Once everybody needed this sort of access, it all suddenly became available, almost overnight. My question is, will it all stay that way? Or will some organizations return to their old non-inclusive habits?”

Medical providers are definitely assessing new ways of offering care in light of the pandemic restrictions worldwide. The Lancet offered an optimistic overview of how respiratory medicine has become more flexible and innovative in the UK during the COVID-19 lockdowns; on the other hand, a British Medical Journal opinion essay from a group of diabetes educators and advocates highlights the tremendous negative impact of the global pandemic on how people with Type 1 diabetes are receiving care and obtaining life-saving medical supplies.

The lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic—many of which we’re still learning—will shape the face of medicine forever, argues surgeon James “Butch” Rosser, Jr., in a piece for the Journal of the Society of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons. He describes the global outbreak as “another Pearl Harbor” which galvanized a slow-to-respond United States to a new level of urgency. A longtime advocate of expanding access to telemedicine, he opines that this “global pandemic can be the birthplace of innovation and progress.”