Families and friends cannot be on the COVID-19 positive patients’ side even on their last moment. They are unable to touch and hug their loved ones. The patients not infected with COVID-19 are also affected by the lockdown rules

Hospice patients, for instance, avoided physical contact due to the changes to visitation rules.

What are hospices? And how does COVID-19 affect it?

Hospice care provides comfort to patients who have severe health conditions. This kind of care also seeks physical, emotional, and spiritual support during their remaining times. Committed hospice providers aim to extend their care to the family, and the bereavement period after the patient has departed.  It typically involves close contact between hospice staff, patients, and their families.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers implement restrictions to observe physical distancing to reduce the virus’s spread.

Facilities or nursing homes where hospice services took place had to reduce the patients from exposure to potential illnesses. They have to prevent the probability of infecting the patients and hospice staff, too. They enforce new restrictions such as limiting or prohibiting family visits.

Hospice care provided at home also follows new restricted recommendations regarding wearing personal protective equipment for the providers.

Hospice support staff may also provide other services through a helpline that is available 24/7 amid pandemic and stay-at-home rules.

Coronavirus restrictions struck everyone hard

Social distancing limits the comfort and emotional support that the patients would have received, especially when they need sympathy alongside themselves.

The same goes for the patient’s family. The grief and counseling support they would have received personally is currently running over the phone.

On the other hand, implementing such drastic measures is also tricky for hospice staff. Keeping healthy and able to come to work during this time of pandemic is also a challenge for hospice staff. Even though they also need to distance themselves from their family, because they need to isolate so that they can be at work.

Edo Banach, president and CEO of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization discussed the needs of hospice and palliative care providers during the COVID-19 outbreak.

In 2017, 4,515 hospices across the United States attended more than 1.49 million patients throughout the year. However, with all the charity shops continuing closing and fundraising events postponed because of the pandemic, hospices are currently facing funds’ insufficiency.

“You can’t argue that nursing homes shouldn’t be a priority. They are hotspots, and they are inevitably going to receive additional scrutiny and additional support. However, on the downside of this [COVID-19] curve — and on the upside of the next one — we’re going to see increased demand for [hospice and palliative care] services,” Banach said. He underscored that protection and support is also important.

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Thanks to the complexities of the customers they represent. In recent years, specialty pharmacies had to take constructive measures to improve consumers’ connect and maintain consistency of treatment. When we faced the pandemic, taking steps has been more urgent. It has pushed the healthcare industry to make more reforms.

The problem for us was: how would we, while maintaining a healthy distance, really be more “hands on?” How will we be more “in line” with patients by excessive direct communication devices and technology to avoid touching things?

Challenges of specialty pharmacy care

Individuals taking specialist drugs are uncommon, complicated illnesses. Patients with inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, renal failure, and life-threatening diseases such as cancer are the primary classes. Their medications are also more complex. These require extra permissions from hospitals and doctors, require specific processing and storage, and may have difficult-to-manage side effects. Even certain medications are given by infusion or injection that requires touching.

Suppose people face difficulties in beginning their medications or dealing with the resulting side effects. In that case, they run the risk of discontinuing the treatment. In fact, this involves more people showing up in the emergency or experiencing problems in their well-being.

Life without a pandemic is difficult enough for these people. They’ve become more prone to “high touch’ surfaces.

Seeking answers through technology

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, several healthcare providers started trying to resolve pressure points in specialty pharmacy services to develop a high touch interface with multimedia or automated resources. They believe that these would ultimately promote improved connectivity, comfort, and treatment.

Such methods and our model were much more important after the pandemic for specialty pharmacy patients, who depend on these treatments to treat their chronic conditions. And, with that, the usage and interaction of these resource styles grow. This has demonstrated the utility and impact of these innovations and has solidified the reality that “no touch” is the new “high touch.”

For example, some realized that:

Knowledge and on-demand assistance are in need, especially during these unpredictable periods.

A patient can obtain real-time alerts by email or text on drug approvals and availability from the day a specialty medication is administered. This would help avoid touching prone areas. And the figures better say the story—17.5 percent are more willing to renew their first medication for people who use it. There’s a rise in patient notification opt-ins of 13 percent in the last year.

Going beyond email and text, secure 2-way messaging enables patients to communicate in real-time with their care team. 

Nurses can help with medication challenges that patients encounter — think about managing side effects, interpreting symptoms, or results from the lab.

Seeking answers through technology

The big challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic have reassured us of what is most critical: seeking strategies to communicate with specialist patients so that they feel safe and able to receive essential treatment and prescription services — while minimizing their sensitivity to the virus.

The pandemic also demonstrated the importance of innovations to offer “high-touch” care through advancement in “no-touch” to allow better connectivity.

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