Some Reflections On The Health Workforce In A Time Of Pandemic

Surges of COVID-19 patients have influenced state officials across the nation to take numerous steps to remove health workforce barriers. An example is a significant expansion of scopes of practice for various clinicians who were and are being educated today in institutions belonging to ASAHP, e.g., physical therapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, and speech‐language pathologists. Other key changes have included:

Allowing some students in professions, such as medicine and nursing, to perform services they are competent to provide by lessening restrictions involving education requirements.
Granting temporary licenses or allowing certain kinds of students to provide services without a license.
Suspending prohibitions that prevent clinicians from other states from providing care via telemedicine.

Advances in technology will influence how health care services are delivered. For example, articles in issues of the journal Science Robotics in July 2020 and in the July/August 2020 issue of MIT’s Technology Review discuss the enhanced potential for the use of assistive robots during infectious disease outbreaks. Hospitals in Texas are using them to help nurses with tasks involving disinfection, patient intake, and delivery of supplies, such as laboratory samples, intravenous pumps, medications, and protective gear during the current pandemic. As technological developments progress, it becomes increasingly likely that robots not only will assist, but might even replace health workers in the performance of other routine tasks.

As described in an a manuscript in the November 2020 issue of the journal Addictive Behaviors, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented stress on health care systems throughout the world. Health care workers are bearing the burden of caring for those afflicted with COVID-19, a consequence of which is direct and sustained infection risk. As essential workers are compelled to confront these increased infection risks, they also are faced with a risk of experiencing higher rates of stress from the pandemic.

A tool recently developed that is called COVID Stress Scales categorizes stressors from the pandemic into five categories: danger and contamination fear, social and economic stress, traumatic stress symptoms, checking and reassurance seeking behavior, and xenophobia. In the general population, each factor can contribute to increased substance use and abuse risk. Also of significance is that these factors can be compounded in essential workers, placing this group at particularly high risk for these problems.

This constellation of stressors is viewed as warranting unique programs of intervention to manage drug use and abuse. Research to develop such programs is needed, particularly in consideration of the broad impact of COVID-19. Researchers are encouraged to tackle these important issues systematically in preparation for challenges that individuals may face with substance use and abuse in the face of current pandemic-related circumstances, post-COVID-19, and for future pandemics. It also would seem prudent for faculty members who provide instruction for and clinical supervision of health professions students to consider ways in which education programs can assist these individuals in being better prepared to meet the challenges of working in highly stressful circumstances when they enter the workplace.

TV and the Internet have provided vivid examples of many different kinds of allied health professionals leaving the safety of their homes to commute via public transportation to furnish care for patients in hospitals who are being treated for COVID-19 infection. They place their own lives at risk in order to save the lives of individuals stricken with this disease. Today’s children are witnesses to the efforts being made by these first responders to help others who are less fortunate. It is worth pondering the extent to which these images will inspire the youth of today to desire to become part of the future health workforce.

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