Testing continues to be a cornerstone in the fight against the pandemic on both an individual and societal level. The advent of vaccines and effective treatments offer new scenarios for management and require refined thinking around testing to derive the most strategic value from it. This paper explores four key testing challenges and recommends four key action steps to healthcare executives to prepare their institutions for effective long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper is part of the Siemens Healthineers Insights Series - The New Normal. It provides ideas and solutions on 'Innovating personalized care' and 'Achieving operational excellence'.
Key takeaways from the paper
Healthcare executives should:
- Continue highlighting the relevance of testing in the vaccination era, because the virus has the potential to affect virtually every clinical and operational aspect of hospitals and other care settings.
- Foster care team coordination to support testing infrastructure. Processes include identifying the right tests, providing ongoing education to staff and patients, refining and reinforcing testing logistics, and making plans to scale up testing and patient management as the situation merits.
- Lead the effort to develop and implement specific protocols for different subpopulations based on clinical and social factors.
- Maintain vigilance and build responsive teams in their organizations to prepare for the unknown, from clinically significant novel virus strains to unexpected data on vaccine efficacy.
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