How can a hospital – with all its complex patient care flows, inventories, purchasing, billing, and production monitoring – do it all in an effective, meaningful way, while making sure every dollar is spent wisely? This is a challenge faced by virtually all hospitals.
Medicine is constantly evolving. As we gain knowledge and learn new skills, patient care improves. That’s why professional academies and hospitals in the U.S. provide—and demand—regular professional development.
More than 25 years have passed since Andean Health & Development began. Like any organization, it has faced multiple challenges: human, financial, social and even political.
We had a census of 50 hospitalized patients at Hesburgh Hospital in February: a new milestone. Where did they come from? Most came from Ecuador’s ministry of public health and social security systems.
COVID-19 has forced so many changes in the world, and AHD is no exception. The pandemic significantly changed the patient mix at our hospitals, had a substantial impact on our staff, and generally has exhausted everyone. It
Humans aren’t the only ones who get fatigued with age. Over time, medical equipment grows weary as well. Our two hospitals are equipped with medical equipment we received, in some cases, almost 20 years ago, and it was used before it got to us.
While conditions surrounding the pandemic in the U.S. appear more encouraging with each passing day, the same cannot be said about Ecuador and many other low-income countries. Latin America has been hit disproportionately hard compared to other regions of the world. During the past two months, public hospitals have once again filled to capacity,
The pandemic has revealed much about healthcare systems, health inequalities, and social determinants of health, such as poverty, geography, language, culture, education and employment. While tragic, many of these issues come as no surprise. In Ecuador, it appears that some of our hardest hit populations have been poor, undereducated, non-Spanish-speaking indigenous communities in the countryside.
Is the worst of COVID-19 behind us? We would all like to believe that it is. Vaccine candidates are close to distribution, and there are some treatments that hold promise. But numbers continue to rise at an alarming rate in the US, and hospitals are once again filling beyond capacity. Read Winter 2020 News Here
From the Field The challenges of COVID faced by poor communities in Ecuador seem worlds apart from those in the United States. So many people here live hand to mouth and simply can’t afford not to work. And most jobs put them face to face with many people, continuously exposing them to the virus. The