The path for hospitals through COVID-19

Hospitals need to identify and leverage new opportunities to care and generate sustainable opportunities

- RAGHAVA RAO

The healthcare industry was seen as a defensive sector that would have minimal / no impact with economic downturns and meltdowns. This was primarily due to the notion that demand for healthcare would not fluctuate. However, this premise was proved wrong when the COVID-19 pandemic struck during early 2020. COVID-19 was a stress test to the industry and highlighted all the systemic flaws.

It is envisaged that COVID-19 infections will persist in the population into 2021, notwithstanding the rapid development of effective therapy or vaccination. Accordingly, doctors and hospitals will be treating patients while infections are still present in the community. The healthcare facilities and doctors will need to treat patients with resource constraints including, but not limited to, lack of virus or antibody testing capabilities, lack of contact tracing support, unavailability of nurses, doctors, admin staff, personal protective equipment (PPE), and shortage of hospital or ICU beds.

To understand the impact of COVID-19 and the way forward for the sector, we undertook a study involving 125 senior executives of the healthcare industry. The report is aimed at answering three key questions, 1. What is the extent of impact to the sector from COVID 19? 2. What is the propensity to adapt to digital health? 3. What is the outlook for the sector from a three-year horizon?