Articles: coronavirus.
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Lancet Reg Health West Pac · May 2021
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer diagnosis and service access in New Zealand-a country pursuing COVID-19 elimination.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted cancer services globally. New Zealand has pursued an elimination strategy to COVID-19, reducing (but not eliminating) this disruption. Early in the pandemic, our national Cancer Control Agency (Te Aho o Te Kahu) began monitoring and reporting on service access to inform national and regional decision-making. In this manuscript we use high-quality, national-level data to describe changes in cancer registrations, diagnosis and treatment over the course of New Zealand's response to COVID-19. ⋯ Data were provided by New Zealand's Ministry of Health, and analyses completed by Te Aho o Te Kahu staff.
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This focus article is a theoretical reflection on the ethics of allocating respirators to patients in circumstances of shortage, especially during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Israel. In this article, respirators are placeholders for similar life-saving modalities in short supply, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines and intensive care unit beds. In the article, I propose a system of triage for circumstances of scarcity of respirators. ⋯ The scarcity situation eliminates excesses of medicine, and then allocates respirators by a single scale, combining an evidence-based scoring system with risk-proportionate lottery. The triage proposed embodies continuity and consistency with the healthcare practices in ordinary times. Yet, I suggest two regulatory modifications: one in relation to expediting review of novel and makeshift solutions and the second in relation to mandatory retrospective research on all relevant medical data and standard (as opposed to experimental) interventions that are influenced by the triage.
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Annals of family medicine · May 2021
A Thoughtful Rebirth of Health Care: Lessons From the Pandemic.
In 16 years of practice, I had never seen a patient light a cigarette or pour a glass of wine in front of me. Yet, that occurred at the very onset of the COVID-19 era, a time that has shattered any preconceived notions of what I might experience during a clinical visit. ⋯ The rapid changes we have had to make in the last year have demonstrated the resiliency of our profession. This is a critical time to refocus and make sure that health care is person-centered, encompasses all modifiable health determinants, and helps individuals achieve health rather than primarily manage disease.