Sars-Cov-2/Covid-19 [Coronavirus] Global Scientific Research and How it Impacts Workplace Health Management and Health Services, Including Policy Implications

Abstract

Background/Objectives The research rationale is that many economic, policy, and government implications result from the COVID-19 pandemic. Author published a literature review on COVID-19 research specific to Australia including policy and media releases. This Australian scientific literature assessed the social impact, government, and policy implications. This manuscript expands on previous research by assessing global pandemic policy specifically in relation to workplace health management, health services and systems. Methods A search strategy was created using the MeSH Browser. The MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the NLM controlled vocabulary thesaurus used for indexing articles for PubMed and is at; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. (((((("SARS-CoV-2"[Mesh])) OR "COVID-19"[Mesh]) OR "Coronavirus"[Mesh]) AND "Policy"[Mesh]). The following individual text words were added to the search string – ‘health services’; - ‘workforce’; - ‘health systems’ in order to quantify the extent of literature pertaining to workplace health management. Results The PubMed Mesh search performed retrieved 2934 articles. Adding individual text words resulted in the following retrievals; health services - 926 retrievals, workforce – 74 retrievals, health systems – 414 retrievals. Conclusions The impact of a pandemic upon workforce services is immense. It relates to variations as a result of shutdowns and adapted essential service provisions. This results in reduced screening or current testing strategies, changes to other routine procedures/services, immunizations/vaccinations and/or reduced treatment for patients with pre-existing diseases. A rapid shift in service delivery with increased usage of digital technologies & e- health in particular in high-income countries is evident, with low and middle-income countries somewhat compromised by poorer infrastructure.