COVID-19: Rapid response in healthcare
March 19, 2020
Coronavirus is a global pandemic
Amid this health and humanitarian emergency, the priority is to protect the health and safety of people, including in their workplaces. Leaders must make rapid decisions, and take immediate actions, to protect and support their workers while ensuring that critical business operations continue.
How healthcare organizations should respond - now
Health plans and providers in the healthcare industry are assessing and quickly mobilizing to respond to emerging threats and impacts of COVID-19 using these steps:
Surge Response
Scale virtual care messaging and visits for quarantined and/or "concerned well" patients Enable triage of concerned patients Prepare to triage and prioritize scarce assets—assess options to create facility and resource capacity Launch and maintain COVID-19 digital communications and virtual assistants Create COVID-19 hotlines for members and patients Expand contact center virtualization and surge staffing
Business Continuity
Assess and address potential supply chain disruption Validate business continuity plans—internal and with external partners Prepare to ‘return to normal’ as efficiently as feasible—think long-term Prepare and enable telecommuting and remote resources Explore options to address employee childcare during crisis Assess and report financial impact (i.e., hot reporting)
Financial Stabilization and Sustainability
Payer
Address near-term financial response
Model future scenarios and impacts on financial plans
Manage reputational risk with transparent financial reporting and community leadership
Provider
Focus on immediate cash flow and liquidity
Capture charges for new services, assets, and locations
Deploy interim labor strategies to balance demand, safety, and expense
Communication and Collaboration
Increase community education activities Establish employee relations hotline for COVID-19 Prioritize media and government agency relations activities—establish priority channels and cadence Prepare to augment clinical capacity and activate community health resources
Monitoring and Reporting
Continuously assess and monitor potential COVID-19 threats Perform COVID-19-specific social media monitoring Create and utilize predictive models to forecast potential impact Confirm operations census and KPI reporting is available Anticipate and prepare for mandated reporting (federal, state and local)
View All
The COVID-19 pandemic is a health and humanitarian crisis, and it is also an economic shock. Now is the time for healthcare leaders worldwide to rapidly assess and respond to these fast-changing developments and the ensuing impact on their people, customers and organizations.
What’s next?
A rapid response is required to proactively manage—and be ready to react to—the ever-changing challenges of COVID-19.
Accenture is at the ready with assets and technology enablers to help you respond rapidly across clinical, call center and other operational areas to ensure business continuity, communication and collaboration.
Healthcare organizations must consider how to adapt to the structural changes to markets and operations that will remain once the virus has been contained, addressing lasting impact to commercial, consumer and civic life through new technologies for permanently shifted consumer habits, and market resilience and competitiveness.
As the situation unfolds, we will update our materials, so please check back.
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