COVID-19 and healthcare system in China: challenges and progression for a sustainable future

Abstract

With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare systems across the world have been pushed to the brink. The approach of traditional healthcare systems to disaster preparedness and prevention has demonstrated intrinsic problems, such as failure to detect early the spread of the virus, public hospitals being overwhelmed, a dire shortage of personal protective equipment, and exhaustion of healthcare workers. Consequently, this situation resulted in manpower and resource costs, leading to the widespread and exponential rise of infected cases at the early stage of the epidemic. To limit the spread of infection, the Chinese government adopted innovative, specialized, and advanced systems, including empowered Fangcang and Internet hospitals, as well as high technologies such as 5G, big data analysis, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The efficient use of these new forces helped China win its fight against the virus. As the rampant spread of the virus continues outside China, these new forces need to be integrated into the global healthcare system to combat the disease. Global healthcare system integrated with new forces is essential not only for COVID-19 but also for unknown infections in the future.

Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19: A Retrospective Multi-Center Study in Pakistan

“…The lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), prolonged exposure to patients, and inadequate knowledge of the disease transmission among the healthcare providers may have increased such incidents (49,50). Increased awareness of self-protection, adequate supplies of PPE, and a prompt response may aid in decreased susceptibility of infection among healthcare workers (46,51,52).…”

Towards Privacy Paradigm Shift Due to the Pandemic: A Brief Perspective

“…To highlight the significance of the presented concepts, we compared the proposed study results with five existing and closely related studies such as Sun et al [13], Chan et al [16], Kim et al [18], Wang et al [41], and Shin et al [93]. All these studies have provided the privacy related issues and emerging solutions for the ongoing pandemic.…”

“…Meanwhile, identification and implementation of the privacy requirements of users and their incorporation in the design of systems/software is very challenging. Hence, the privacy protection in epidemic control measures has become the conceptual foundations of futures research and digital healthcare solutions [13][14][15].…”

Gender Differences in Psychological and Behavioral Responses of Infected and Uninfected Health-Care Workers During the Early COVID-19 Outbreak

“…But the shortage of PPE was an indisputable fact in the early stage. In early March, State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China reported that more than 3,000 HCWs had been infected in hospitals (32). A quality study on doctors stated that doctors gave orders and didn't enter isolation wards when patients were kept stable, while the orders were implemented by nurses for direct contact with patients (33).…”