Abstract
This paper aims to acknowledge frontline healthcare workers’ obstacles and hospitals’ hardships during the covid pandemic in 2020. After identifying the origin and epidemiology of the covid-19 virus, extensive research determined how challenges impacted global hospitals. These challenges included reduction of staff, supply shortages, changes in policies and procedures, organizational forced mandates, decreased revenue, hospital capacity overflow, hospital visitation guidelines, fears among healthcare professionals leading to psychological distress, and management of the unknown virus within healthcare organizations worldwide. The research will discuss healthcare mandates that took place to manage the covid virus, visitation guidelines hospitals adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce transmission, how healthcare management supported staff, and how healthcare organizations ensured the safety of patients, staff, and visitors. It will illustrate how medical facilities have quickly adapted to meet the demands of a national crisis. This project will identify how the pandemic resulted in distress and created a negative psychological impact leading to burnout among healthcare staff. My research includes personal interviews with frontline healthcare workers who experienced the trauma firsthand. They discuss the hardships they experienced during that time. It discusses the healthcare staff's psychological significance during the covid-19 pandemic and the significance of frontline staff support from administration, leadership, colleagues, and family during the crisis. Finally, the paper provides modifications for new workflow processes adopted by healthcare staff to meet the demands initiated by the disease. This project aims to provide extensive research on how healthcare workers experienced changes in workflow during Covid-19 and how they maintained a healthy culture within our healthcare systems, and how hospitals are still trying to come back from this challenging time. Healthcare staff must be recognized and advocated globally for risking their health to care for those critically ill with the covid-19 virus.
Year Manuscript Completed
Fall 2022
Senior Project Advisor
Mr. G. Michael Barton
Degree Awarded
Bachelor of Integrated Studies Degree
Field of Study
Health Care Administration
Document Type
Thesis
Recommended Citation
Shehorn, Leslie, "The Sweeping Changes Felt in Healthcare During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (2022). Integrated Studies. 458.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/bis437/458