Resilient Health and the Healthcare System. A Few Introductory Remarks in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

People across the globe are facing increasingly complex public health emergencies that are responsible for the loss of life, economic and social problems with unprecedented damage and costs. For some sociologists, our society is even “a risk society” and our time is highly violative. Emergencies of different origin: stemming from natural environmental disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, intense drought, technical accidents, social unrest and last but not least—outbreaks of infectious diseases. This decade started with one of the most significant pandemics in the history of man-kind—COVID-19. Hence, the problems of resilient health and healthcare systems have become urgent. Especially since SARS-CoV-2 may cause long-term health threats and recurrent crises. It is very important to have a common language. So far, definitions and concepts of health and healthcare resilience differ substantially and are seldom clearly defined. The aim of this paper is to describe how health and healthcare system resilience is defined to either uncover, recall, or in combination, its concept and prepare an introductory conceptual review as a preliminary step for further studies.

Healthcare resilience: a meta-narrative systematic review and synthesis of reviews

“…Three reviews contained lists of definitions from other studies 17 34 35. Another three reviews presented narrative collections and analyses of definitions 15 36 37…”

A resilient, robust transformation of healthcare systems to cope with COVID-19 through alternative resources

“…To deal with sudden disruptions and lack of knowledge during a pandemic with disastrous scales such as COVID-19, we need a resilient healthcare system that can: (1) ensure a comprehensive response considering health, social, and economic considerations simultaneously, (2) adjust capacity to meet patient demands, (3) preserve functions and resources to maintain routine and acute care, and (4) curb vulnerability to catastrophic losses in a community's economy and wellbeing [57] . To this end, Hanefeld et al [58] examined important aspects of health system resilience during the 2017 Ebola outbreak in Africa.…”

Challenges for interprofessional simulation‐based sedation training courses: Mini review

“…For including emergency response team competency in SEDTC, we should focus attention on the resilience of individual team members. 24,25 A recent report showed that staff resilience plays an essential role in the development of overall patient safety. 26 As resilience of medical staffs can facilitate improvements in interprofessional teamwork, applications, safety climate development plays a central role in effective rapid response team function.…”

“…Although rapid response team performance is not uniform in each department, rapid response training in SEDTC should emphasize sedation‐related emergency and treatments. For including emergency response team competency in SEDTC, we should focus attention on the resilience of individual team members 24,25 …”