TY - JOUR
T1 - COVID-19 Disruption To Routine Health Care Services: How 8 Latin American And Caribbean Countries Responded
T2 - How 8 Latin American And Caribbean Countries Responded
AU - Herrera, Cristian A.
AU - Juárez-Ramírez, Clara
AU - Reyes-Morales, Hortensia
AU - Bedregal, Paula
AU - Reartes-Peñafiel, Diana L.
AU - Díaz-Portillo, Sandra P.
AU - Klazinga, Niek
AU - Kringos, Dionne S.
AU - Veillard, Jeremy
N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge grant support for this work from the World Bank Group. The authors also acknowledge the interviewees for their participation and the contributions of World Bank colleagues Nicole Feune de Colombi, Daniela Romero, Vanina Camporeale, Maria Eugenia Barbieri, Gabriel Aguirre, Patricia Matho, Michele Gragnolati, and Luis Benveniste. The authors also thank J. L. Ríos for support for the online interactive illustration (see note 18). This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute this work provided the original work is properly cited, not altered, and not used for commercial purposes. See https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/. To access the authors’ disclosures, click on the Details tab of the article online. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, Project HOPE. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/12/1
Y1 - 2023/12/1
N2 - Latin America and the Caribbean was one of the regions hardest hit globally by SARS-CoV-2. This qualitative exploratory study examined how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the delivery of routine health services from the perspective of health care system decision makers and managers. Between May and December 2022, we conducted forty-two semistructured interviews with decision makers from ministries of health and health care managers with responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. On the basis of these interviews, we identified themes in three domains: impacts on the provision of routine health services, including postponed and forgone primary care and hospital services; barriers to maintaining routine health services due to preexisting structural health care system weaknesses and difficulties attributed to the pandemic; and innovative strategies to sustain and recover services such as public-private financing and coordination, telemedicine, and new roles for primary care. In the short term, policy efforts should focus on recovering postponed services, including those for noncommunicable diseases. Medium- and long-term health care system reforms should strengthen primary care and address structural issues, such as fragmentation, to promote more resilient health care systems.
AB - Latin America and the Caribbean was one of the regions hardest hit globally by SARS-CoV-2. This qualitative exploratory study examined how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the delivery of routine health services from the perspective of health care system decision makers and managers. Between May and December 2022, we conducted forty-two semistructured interviews with decision makers from ministries of health and health care managers with responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. On the basis of these interviews, we identified themes in three domains: impacts on the provision of routine health services, including postponed and forgone primary care and hospital services; barriers to maintaining routine health services due to preexisting structural health care system weaknesses and difficulties attributed to the pandemic; and innovative strategies to sustain and recover services such as public-private financing and coordination, telemedicine, and new roles for primary care. In the short term, policy efforts should focus on recovering postponed services, including those for noncommunicable diseases. Medium- and long-term health care system reforms should strengthen primary care and address structural issues, such as fragmentation, to promote more resilient health care systems.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85178558026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00694
DO - https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00694
M3 - Article
C2 - 38048493
SN - 0278-2715
VL - 42
SP - 1667
EP - 1674
JO - Health affairs (Project Hope)
JF - Health affairs (Project Hope)
IS - 12
ER -