There was a shortage of health care workers before COVID. Now that the dwindling labor pool is a top news headline, the realization has set in – which medical professionals were trying to communicate from the beginning of the pandemic – that one of COVID’s worst effects is that it overwhelms medical systems and challenges short-staffed hospitals to provide care for other diseases and ailments.

“Even if Omicron is mild, it will create a large denominator of cases, some number of which will need to be hospitalized,” says Gigi Norris, Managing Director at Marsh where she leads the US healthcare practice. “That’s happening at the same time as other COVID cases and influenza, which always creates an uptick in hospitals in the wintertime. There is a potential deluge of patients.”

In the podcast Norris brings her expertise in public health and pandemics to describe the unfolding of events of a disease with many unknowns, the issues around information and communication, and the effects on the critical labor force needed to treat millions of patients.

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Tags: COVID, Gigi Norris, hospital beds, hospital staff, insurance, Marsh, Marsh McLennan, nursing shortage, Omicron, pandemic risk
 
Posted in: Audio Podcast, Healthcare, This Moment Matters