J Am Board Fam Med
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The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has laid bare the dis-integrated health care system in the United States. Decades of inattention and dwindling support for public health, coupled with declining access to primary care medical services have left many vulnerable communities without adequate COVID-19 response and recovery capacity. "Health is a Community Affair" is a 1966 effort to build and deploy local communities of solution that align public health, primary care, and community organizations to identify health care problem sheds, and activate local asset sheds. ⋯ Imagine how different things might look if we had widely implemented the recommendations from the 1966 report? The ideas and concepts laid out in "Health is a Community Affair" still offer a COVID-19 response and recovery approach. By bringing public health and primary care together in community now, a future that includes a shared vision and combined effort may emerge.
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To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and recover from its aftermath, primary care teams will face waves of overwhelming demand for information and the need to significantly transform care delivery.
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The COVID-19 (C-19) pandemic required swift response from health care organizations to mitigate spread and impact. A large integrated health network rapidly deployed and operationalized multiple access channels to the community, allowing assessment and triage to occur virtually. These channels were characterized by swift implementation of virtual models, including asynchronous e-visits and video visits for C-19 screening. ⋯ Given ongoing patient interest and opportunity, virtual health care services will continue to be available for an expanded number of symptoms and diagnoses.
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To date, there are no effective treatments for decreasing hospitalizations in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections. It has been suggested that the influenza vaccine might attenuate the severity of COVID-19. ⋯ Our analysis suggests that the influenza vaccination is potentially protective of moderate and severe cases of COVID-19 infection. This protective effect holds regardless of comorbidity. The literature points to a potential mechanism via natural killer cell activation. Though our data potentially is limited by its generalizability and our vaccination rate is low, it holds significant relevance given the upcoming influenza season. Not only could simply encouraging influenza vaccination decrease morbidity and mortality from the flu, but it might help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic as well. We encourage further studies into this finding.
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Health care workers treating Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients face significant stressors such as caring for critically ill and dying patients, physically demanding care requiring new degrees of personal protective equipment use, risk of contracting the disease, and putting loved ones at risk. This study investigates the stress impact from COVID-19 exposure and how nurses and medical providers (eg, physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) experience these challenges differently. ⋯ The significant stress burden placed on nurses likely contributes to increased thoughts of job resignation. However, health care providers displayed high levels of altruism during this time of extreme crisis, despite their personal risks of caring for COVID-19 patients.