Editors: | F. Kongoli, F. Murad, T. Yoshikawa, S. Waldman, J. Ribas, S. Hirano, D. Joseph, R. Guerrant, W. Petri, H. Inufusa, H. Yedoyan, S. Heysell. |
Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
Publication Year: | 2022 |
Pages: | 130 pages |
ISBN: | 978-1-989820-70-4(CD) |
ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
Since the UN declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic in March 2020, the InterprofessionalResearch.Global (IPR.Global) has established a COVID-19 Taskforce to assess the global impacts of COVID-19 on interprofessional healthcare education, practice, and research, and to develop/disseminate best recommendations and guidance for our global community.
Healthcare education and practice continue to be highly disrupted by the current pandemic. In practice, the operation of providing direct care is restricted to essential services to protect patients and learners. However, telehealth has become a primary method of delivering care in which healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients experience a sudden and disruptive change in their healthcare delivery. In education, students and faculty are experiencing fragmentation in learning and collaboration considering normal class teaching and clinical/community instructions are not existed anymore. In underserved populations and countries, the situation is dire, as for example two-thirds of African institutions had to cancel or suspend their teaching last year. In fact, the pandemic revealed/widened the digital divide and inequity in accessing to services, technology, and distance learning in the global society. Only 60% of the global population has online access, and of those, many cannot afford computers, or may not have the know-how to use them.
The future of health care relies on our successful and systematic evolution out of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed the health care at a crossroads of either viewing it as a temporary situation that requires short-term solutions, or as a major disruption that presents opportunities for innovation for sustainable development and transformation. The abrupt transition to virtual healthcare and distance learning along with the COVID-19 restrictions have caused more than 80% of HCPs and over 70% of college level students to experience anxiety, stress, and/or burnout.
In a recent Call to Action entitled: “Building Resilience in Health Care in the time of COVID-19 through Collaboration – A Call to Action, IPR.Global urged the global healthcare education and practice communities to act strategic and bold to address the imminent threat of a parallel burnout pandemic by using system-based collaborative approach. Attention must be given to building capacity in the society through collaboration, innovation, and resilience.
The rapidly changing landscape of the health care towards digitalization and smart technology integration provides promising opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and resilience in improving patient/population care, safety, and health outcomes. In this Keynote, I will discuss the new paradigm shift in the digitalized healthcare education and practice that requires us to think and act differently using innovative, collaborative, and system-based approach in delivering healthcare practice and in developing the current and future healthcare workforce of the future.