Systemic Healthcare Improvement after COVID-19

What happens when the clinical outcome of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) therapies is bringing more patients home from the hospital—but patients don’t have sustainable self-care at home?

Such a question is posed on the tail of the most recent clinical data shared for recently authorized therapy remdesivir, which has been and is still being assessed for patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19.

Findings from late April, prior to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted it Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), show that at least, the therapy is associated with reduced hospital stay in treated patients, if not a reduced mortality risk.

But for a disease which has affected minority populations so much more significantly, are better, immediate resolutions needed? Should authorized treatment aim to achieve something greater?

In an interview with HCPLive, Jay Bhatt, DO, MPH, MPA, a Chicago-based internist, APSEN Health Innovator, and former chief medical officer of the American Hospital Association, discussed the valuation of preventive care in minority populations—a resolution which applies better to most at-risk patients’ livelihoods than current social distancing guidances or hospital-based therapies.

“You may do all you can to take care of people in a clinical setting, but when they go back to where they’re living—whether it be in multigenerational crowded housing, on the streets, or in challenging circumstances—they’re again at risk,” he explained.

The issue of systemic risk for COVID-19 among minority populations is something that cannot be treated with a pill. Better public health resolutions need to address the cyclical nature of how health epidemics affect the same US patient groups continuously.