Medical Staff Shortages and the Performance of Outpatient Clinics in Poland during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Piotr Korneta () and Magda Chmiel
Additional contact information
Piotr Korneta: Faculty of Management, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-524 Warszawa, Poland
Magda Chmiel: Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Commodity Science, Kazimierz Pułaski University of Technology and Humanities, 26-610 Radom, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: Unlike many industries, healthcare was simultaneously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in two opposite ways. On the one hand, the industry faced shortages and overload of many medical representatives such as nurses and infectious disease professionals, but on the other, many medical professionals such as dentists were left with considerably reduced demand. The objective of this paper is to study the efficiency of medical staff allocation and the performance of small and medium sized outpatient clinics in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Owing to the contemporaneity of this problem, we have employed a multiple case study approach. Our sample comprises 5 small and medium-sized outpatient clinics located in Poland in the 3-year period 2019–2021. The results indicate a considerable percentage of medical staff employed in small and medium-sized outpatient clinics remained outside the pandemic, despite their potential provision of healthcare services. Four of the five clinics studied remained passive towards the pandemic. In view of future pandemics, the indications we provide have practical implications for outpatient clinics executives and public health policymakers.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-19; pandemic; multiple case study; outpatient clinics; medical staff shortages; public aid; dentistry; primary healthcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14827/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14827/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:22:p:14827-:d:969665

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().