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.
Highlights
Community health centers (CHCs) are the largest providers of primary care services nationwide, serving over 29 million people [1], mostly very low-income populations with greater healthcare needs than the general low-income population [2]
Non-English speakers, undocumented patients, and persons living at or below the poverty level—including members of those same communities working as frontline workers—were devastated by the impacts of COVID-19 [3]
Organizational leaders described a stressful time requiring flexibility in response to situations in which information changed daily and sometimes multiple times a day. They reported focusing on the need to make decisions regarding restructuring clinic operations to be compliant with COVID restrictions and ensuring that patients’ needs continued to be met
Summary
Community health centers (CHCs) are the largest providers of primary care services nationwide, serving over 29 million people [1], mostly very low-income populations with greater healthcare needs than the general low-income population [2]. Non-English speakers, undocumented patients, and persons living at or below the poverty level—including members of those same communities working as frontline workers—were devastated by the impacts of COVID-19 [3]. These populations had higher rates of COVID19 infection and morbidity, and face disproportionate challenges at home, such as the lack of childcare and loss of family income [3–5]. Like many other health service providers, this critical safety net has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic [6].
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