"…During the Spanish flu epidemic, the United States health system did not have the capacity to admit the large volume of infected people. Hospitals were forced to turn away the sick, causing many persons to suffer — and die — at home without access to health care.
Fortunately, health care has come a long way since then, with the medical weaponry available to battle this new virus — e.g., antibiotics, vaccines, and intensive care units, among other things — dramatically better than existed to fight the Spanish flu.
Among the other important new medical weaponry is the fact that we now have a system in place to deal with overflow patients from an overwhelmed private-sector health care system in case of an emergency like a pandemic. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is central to this plan. If the coronavirus spreads as fast as some models predict, it will be important for VA hospitals to have as many beds available as possible, and the VA is making that possible now thanks to its pioneering use of telehealth and remote monitoring technologies…"
Read the op-ed at MilitaryTimes.
Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer is chief healthcare transformation officer at Atlas Research. He previously served as the undersecretary for health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as director of health services for California, where he orchestrated the state’s response to the new HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.