Journal of primary care & community health
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J Prim Care Community Health · Jan 2021
Concerns, Perceived Impact, Preparedness in Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic and Health Outcomes among Italian Physicians: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Health care workers (HCWs) are among the professionals at serious risk for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental health. In this sense, the next public health challenge globally will be to preserving healthy HCWs during this pandemic. ⋯ In general, our results highlighted that being concerned about being infected/infecting other people, carrying out new and unusual tasks, and witnessing colleagues crying at work were important risk factors for physicians' well-being. Additional data are necessary to advance understanding of these risk factors in a long-term perspective.
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J Prim Care Community Health · Jan 2021
Project ECHO COVID-19: Vulnerable Populations and Telehealth Early in the Pandemic.
Project ECHO COVID-19 was launched nationwide on March 4, 2020 to disseminate guidance about COVID-19 in a timely and scalable manner to meet the urgent needs of primary care settings, the first line of defense in a pandemic. ⋯ Care of vulnerable populations and clinical operations should be addressed when planning education and clinical interventions for public health crises. Adapting the Project ECHO model to be more scalable was an effective means of creating a community of practice among health professionals when evidence-based guidance was not available to manage the implications of a pandemic.
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J Prim Care Community Health · Jan 2020
Addressing the COVID-19 Nutrition Crisis in Vulnerable Communities: Applying a Primary Care Perspective.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent public health interventions have disrupted food systems all over the world. In the Philippines, where stringent lockdown rules have been implemented, households living in poverty have had to rely largely on food aid in the form of food packs distributed by local governments and private donors. ⋯ The negative health impact of commonly distributed food packs on food aid-dependent households shine a light on how the COVID-19 pandemic and public health policies exacerbate health inequities. A primary care perspective is essential in creating food security policies that can effectively address acute hunger and malnutrition without contributing to the long-term deleterious effects of inadequate nutrition on the health of indigent communities.
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J Prim Care Community Health · Jan 2020
ReviewExploring the Potential of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Combat COVID-19 and Existing Opportunities for LMIC: A Scoping Review.
In the face of the current time-sensitive COVID-19 pandemic, the limited capacity of healthcare systems resulted in an emerging need to develop newer methods to control the spread of the pandemic. Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) have a vast potential to exponentially optimize health care research. The use of AI-driven tools in LMIC can help in eradicating health inequalities and decrease the burden on health systems. ⋯ AI-based tools can be a game-changer for diagnosis, treatment, and management of COVID-19 patients with the potential to reshape the future of healthcare in LMIC.
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J Prim Care Community Health · Jan 2020
Rigorous Hand Hygiene Practices Among Health Care Workers Reduce Hospital-Associated Infections During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The experiences of these recent months have left us with as many new questions as they have given us new solutions. The main question that infection prevention and control department is having these days is "Why have hospital-associated infections (HAIs) reduced during COVID-19 pandemic?" What is the one unique strategy that has brought decline in increasing HAIs? Would it be appropriate to say that rigorous hand hygiene practices among health care workers (HCWs) have reduced HAIs in a tertiary care hospital of Pakistan? This commentary is written to understand the effect of rigorous hand hygiene among HCWs on number of HAIs during COVID-19 pandemic. Given the seriousness of this outbreak, it was observed that the hand hygiene has occupied a new place of importance in the minds of HCWs. ⋯ The increased consumption of hand sanitizers was reflected in improved hand hygiene practices. A reduction was observed in the number of HAIs after the COVID-19 outbreak, and we assume that the dip in HAIs is associated with the improvement in hand hygiene practices in the recent months. In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, these trends reassure us that hand hygiene compliance by HCWs alone can be effective in reducing HAIs in a hospital setting.