Guidance for Health Care Leaders During COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Stage

Jul 13, 2021   |  Salim Hayek, MD, FACC
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Authors:
Geerts JM, Kinnair D, Taheri P, et al.
Citation:
Guidance for Health Care Leaders During the Recovery Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Consensus Statement. JAMA Netw Open 2021;4:e2120295.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic can be broken down into four overlapping progressive stages: 1) escalation, 2) emergency, 3) recovery, and 4) resolution. Unique challenges for the recovery stage include balancing competing priorities, maintaining staff engagement and motivation, and avoiding burnout within a post-emergency environment that is volatile, uncertain, and complex.

This consensus statement was produced by a multinational team of experts in various aspects of health leadership and fields related to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The document specifically creates a framework and expands on the following 10 key imperatives for leaders to address the persistent challenges of the pandemic:

  1. Celebrate staff, acknowledge performance, resilience.
  2. Provide support for staff well-being.
  3. Develop a clear understanding of the current local and global context, along with informed projections.
  4. Prepare for emergencies (personnel, resources, protocols, contingency plans, coalitions, and training).
  5. Reassess priorities explicitly and regularly and provide purpose, meaning, and direction.
  6. Maximize team, organizational, and system performance and discuss enhancements.
  7. Manage the backlog of paused services and consider improvements, while avoiding burnout and moral distress.
  8. Sustain learning, innovations, and collaborations, and imagine future possibilities.
  9. Provide regular communication and engender trust.
  10. Advise government with public health and fellow leaders on requirements, exchange information with other organizations, and inform staff and the community to improve equitable and integrated care and emergency preparedness systemwide.

Clinical Topics: Cardiovascular Care Team, COVID-19 Hub, Prevention, Stress

Keywords: Burnout, Professional, Communication, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Delivery of Health Care, Delivery of Health Care, Integrated, Emergencies, Employee Performance Appraisal, Health Workforce, Leadership, Morals, Motivation, Pandemics, Primary Prevention, Public Health, Trust


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