Editor-in-Chief.
Healthc Policy. 2021 May;16(4):6-15. doi: 10.12927/hcpol.2021.26503.
As contemporaneous data emerge from publicly funded healthcare providers, the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to measure their resiliency. Resiliency matters because it connotes a higher level of confidence in being able to provide needed healthcare during times of health, social or environmental stress or calamity. At the beginning of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, there were warnings regarding hospitals' ability to successfully manage large surges of critically ill COVID-19 patients who were expected to soon be presenting at hospitals in every province and territory. Shortly thereafter, hospitals implemented policies to clear hospital beds - there were public reports that hospitals rapidly went from nearly full occupancy to below 50% (CIHI 2020a; Howlett 2020; Zeidler 2020).
随着公共资助的医疗保健提供者不断发布最新数据，新冠疫情为衡量其弹性提供了一个独特的机会。弹性之所以重要，是因为它意味着在卫生、社会或环境压力或灾难时期，有更高的信心提供所需的医疗保健。在 2020 年初新冠疫情第一波高峰期开始时，就有关于医院能否成功管理大量重症新冠患者激增的警告，预计这些患者很快将出现在每个省和地区的医院。此后不久，医院就实施了清空医院病床的政策——有公开报道称，医院的入住率迅速从接近满员降至 50%以下（加拿大卫生信息研究所，2020a；豪利特，2020；采德勒，2020）。
