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Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program

When COVID-19 emerged, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) was in the process of implementing a national contingency staffing program called Clinical Resource Hubs (CRHs). CRHs were intended to provide regional contingency staffing for primary and mental health clinics experiencing staffing...

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Autores principales: Cannedy, Shay, Bergman, Alicia, Medich, Melissa, Rose, Danielle E., Stockdale, Susan E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8872234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206859
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020244
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author Cannedy, Shay
Bergman, Alicia
Medich, Melissa
Rose, Danielle E.
Stockdale, Susan E.
author_facet Cannedy, Shay
Bergman, Alicia
Medich, Melissa
Rose, Danielle E.
Stockdale, Susan E.
author_sort Cannedy, Shay
collection PubMed
description When COVID-19 emerged, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) was in the process of implementing a national contingency staffing program called Clinical Resource Hubs (CRHs). CRHs were intended to provide regional contingency staffing for primary and mental health clinics experiencing staffing shortages primarily through telehealth. Long-term plans (year 2) included emergency management support. Early in the implementation, we conducted semi-structured interviews with CRH directors and national program leaders (n = 26) and used a rapid analysis approach to identify actions taken by CRHs to support the resiliency of the VA healthcare system during the pandemic. We found that the CRH program was flexible and nimble enough to allow VA to leverage providers at hubs to better respond to the demands of COVID-19. Actions taken at hubs to sustain patient access and staff resiliency during the pandemic included supporting call centers and training VA providers on virtual care delivery. Factors that facilitated CRH’s emergency response included hub staff expertise in telehealth and the increased acceptability of virtual care among key stakeholders. We conclude that hub providers serving as contingency staff, as well as specialization in delivering virtual outpatient and inpatient care, enabled VA health system resiliency and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-88722342022-02-25 Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program Cannedy, Shay Bergman, Alicia Medich, Melissa Rose, Danielle E. Stockdale, Susan E. Healthcare (Basel) Article When COVID-19 emerged, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) was in the process of implementing a national contingency staffing program called Clinical Resource Hubs (CRHs). CRHs were intended to provide regional contingency staffing for primary and mental health clinics experiencing staffing shortages primarily through telehealth. Long-term plans (year 2) included emergency management support. Early in the implementation, we conducted semi-structured interviews with CRH directors and national program leaders (n = 26) and used a rapid analysis approach to identify actions taken by CRHs to support the resiliency of the VA healthcare system during the pandemic. We found that the CRH program was flexible and nimble enough to allow VA to leverage providers at hubs to better respond to the demands of COVID-19. Actions taken at hubs to sustain patient access and staff resiliency during the pandemic included supporting call centers and training VA providers on virtual care delivery. Factors that facilitated CRH’s emergency response included hub staff expertise in telehealth and the increased acceptability of virtual care among key stakeholders. We conclude that hub providers serving as contingency staff, as well as specialization in delivering virtual outpatient and inpatient care, enabled VA health system resiliency and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. MDPI 2022-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8872234/ /pubmed/35206859 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020244 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Cannedy, Shay
Bergman, Alicia
Medich, Melissa
Rose, Danielle E.
Stockdale, Susan E.
Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title_full Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title_fullStr Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title_full_unstemmed Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title_short Health System Resiliency and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of a New Nationwide Contingency Staffing Program
title_sort health system resiliency and the covid-19 pandemic: a case study of a new nationwide contingency staffing program
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8872234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206859
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020244
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