The coronavirus pandemic has led many healthcare workers, particularly women with children, to consider leaving the workforce or reducing work hours, a recent study found.

In March 2020, 42% of U.S. workers transitioned to working from home. It is likely that employed women faced greater burdens because they spend 22% more time on household and care work compared to men. Studies have shown that healthcare workers have faced higher stress levels during the pandemic than before the pandemic.

The challenges facing infection preventionists (IP) were already immense before the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year. Now the demand for their expertise is higher than ever, says Devin Jopp, EdD, MS, who was recently appointed as CEO of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

Healthcare technology innovation is moving faster than ever as technology companies push tremendous disruptions into this critical sector. However, these disruptions often fail to acknowledge existing workflows and how best to support clinicians. As every physician who has bemoaned the time demand of entering data into EMR systems knows, when technology solutions address a given need, they often create other challenges.

Often the blame goes to a lack of interoperability—the ability of information technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and put this exchanged information to use. Ideally, data exchange standards would allow data to be shared across clinicians, labs, and facilities, regardless of the application or software vendor.

Work with your regional healthcare coalition and Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify the number of dialysis and other vulnerable patients who might show up needing critical services if water and power become scarce during a disaster.

Be prepared to coordinate with other hospitals and dialysis centers to take those patients and work with regional officials to determine when water, oxygen, and backup power resources should be pre-positioned or diverted to appropriate locations.

For more insight, PSMJ spoke with study author Alex S. Keuroghlian, MD, MPH, about LGBTQIA+ health and patient safety. Keuroghlian is the director of both the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at Fenway Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Psychiatry Gender Identity Program.