Good health helps a country develop but is the only factor that allows people to improve their current economic standing. To achieve excellent health outcomes, the government must dedicate itself to building the infrastructure. Unfortunately, one of the most challenging events hitting governments worldwide was the pandemic of 2019. Not only did the world as a whole come to a standstill, but development, progress, and economic growth also halted.
Even worse were the public health outcomes. People were contracting the virus at an alarming rate. This caused deaths on a massive scale. This disaster burdened the healthcare sector and depleted the resources. After the vaccination rolled out, the government began focusing on public health more than ever. Here’s how public health has changed following the pandemic:
- More Training In Supply Chain Management
The pandemic exposed that the healthcare sector had to improve its method of securing and storing vaccines. Procurement, storage, and distribution of drugs is a significant challenge for the healthcare sector. The population needed imported medication repeatedly, so hospitals need to figure out a better method to store and use them. One of the biggest crises the healthcare sector faces is a lack of PPEs. With better training, health care workers will know how to store medications and PPEs. So, when the need arises to use them, they will be ready for dispatch.
- Educating The Masses
The government realized that one of the ways to improve public health outcomes is to educate the population. While treatment options are in place, prevention can save more lives. Public health workers who have undergone relevant courses like mph degrees online or in-person are suitable for this role. They can utilize various online and offline platforms to educate the public on easy methods to take care of their health. Something as little as taking care of your hygiene using proper antibacterial soaps can keep many diseases at bay.
- More Virtual Healthcare
Accessibility is a significant challenge when it comes to health. This has been an issue particularly for those who live in far-off places or can’t get appointments right away due to massive bookings. In such cases, virtual health acts as a great savior. Not only does it allow people to check if their symptoms warrant a visit, but it helps the healthcare system manage their workload. Telehealth has also allowed doctors to tackle many cases and even educate the public on monitoring their health. This has allowed the public to learn basic healthcare techniques and measures. As a result, for any manageable symptom, patients know what they need to do.
For instance, one of the most common factors contributing to cardiovascular diseases is obesity. Patients can keep an eye on their weight and deduce how weight plays a role in their symptoms, such as breathlessness, increased sweating, and trouble in movement.
- Using Data To Study Hospital Responsiveness
One of the most important contributions of the pandemic to the healthcare sector is data. This data covers a variety of statistics, including hospital responsiveness, patient’s health outcomes, demographics, and the insurance gap. When hospitals have information on all of this data, they can publish research and reform policies. When hospitals pick up on what demographics are vulnerable, they can focus on more central healthcare measures to help those members. Data can also help public health professionals to reach out to these communities and deliver care.
For instance, a study showed that malnourished children who are severely underweight have a high chance of falling sick. The public health sector can conduct a survey to pick up where most of these children live and prioritize from densely populated to least. They can then visit these areas and provide supplements to these children to react with nutrients to help them get healthy. This is how data allows hospitals and the state to make fast decisions on what they need to treat diseases.
- More Funding Towards Public Health
The public health sector always needs funding. This is because the data they collect, the research they do are pivotal in modern medicine. Much of what we know about vaccines, immunity, and even antibody depletion comes from such work. The more the government gives funding to the researchers, the better they can bring healthcare outcomes.
The public health sector has been pivotal in gathering information about the virus. This helped the government make relevant policies and devise safety measures. Now, with more funding, they can predict future healthcare outcomes, such as how much time it will take to recover from the pandemic. It can also help public health workers devise vaccines that keep immunity up to prevent future pandemics from wreaking havoc. When public health has more research available, it makes it easier to provide more information to the public instead of preliminary research that takes too long to publish. Furthermore, funding also means more labs and lab equipment.
- Exchanging Of Resources Between States
Hoarding resources has never been a good idea. For example, some states within the US have better resources, talent, and even machines than the rest. As a result, one side of the state gets proper treatment while others struggle. Exchanging resources can help curb these differences. States can swap both human resources and machines. This encourages the idea of traveling nurses such as APRNs. These professions can step in for physicians and provide primary health care as well as advanced medicine. For example, many APRNs can help women deliver babies safely without an OB/GYN. As a result, these professionals can focus on more complicated health cases.
Conclusion
As the world recovers from the pandemic, there have been many changes in the public health sector. For the government, these public health outcomes brought about a valuable lesson. It taught them what aspects of public health they need to pay attention to. This includes better management of resources, more funding to the public health sector, and educating the masses. The culmination of this hard work will yield positive outcomes and keep the country prepared in case there is another emergency.
