Healthcare Leadership Perspectives on Supporting Frontline Workers in Health Center Settings during the Pandemic

Carmen Alvarez, Holly Sims, Kimesha Grant, Jessica Walczak, Paula Darby Lipman, Jill A. Marsteller, Lisa A. Cooper and on behalf of RICH LIFE Project Investigators
Additional contact information
Carmen Alvarez: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Holly Sims: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Kimesha Grant: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Jessica Walczak: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Paula Darby Lipman: Westat, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
Jill A. Marsteller: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Lisa A. Cooper: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
on behalf of RICH LIFE Project Investigators: Membership of the RICH LIFE Project Investigators is provided in the Acknowledgments.

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 6, 1-11

Abstract: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic much attention has been given to addressing the needs of hospital-based healthcare professionals delivering critical inpatient care. At the same time, other groups of essential frontline healthcare workers have continued to serve low-income and underserved populations whose healthcare and nonmedical needs did not cease, and in many cases were exacerbated by factors associated with the pandemic shutdown. As these same factors also potentially impacted well-being and effectiveness of frontline healthcare workers, we sought to understand the organizational-level responses to the pandemic, including the support and preparation for frontline workers. As part of a larger study focused on reducing health disparities in hypertension, we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 14 leaders from healthcare and health services organizations to explore how these organizations responded to accommodate frontline workers’ needs. Findings from our sample show that healthcare and health service organizations made a range of major and timely modifications to clinic operations intended to address the needs of both employees and patients and strove to ensure continued patient services as much as possible. Nevertheless, our findings underscore the need for more attention and resources to support healthcare workers in primary care settings especially during emergencies such as COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; healthcare leadership; healthcare workers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3310/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3310/ (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:6:p:3310-:d:768890

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 ().