Post Covid Planning

There may not be a post COVID-19. 

I’ve read that it took a number of years for the real and emotional effects of the 1918 pandemic to subside.  “Once in a century” pandemics tend to change and reshape the world.  Believing everything has changed is a big overreaction, but there is no denying that lots has changed.  Look around and you’ll see proof:  How different are things for you at work?  How different was your Thanksgiving celebration?  What will your Christmas Holiday look like?  Been to a movie lately? Sporting event?  Concert? Church?  Do you get to see your friends and family?  Do you know anyone who succumbed to the virus?

Work life

If you are now working from home, you’ve experienced a major change.  Most people I have spoken with enjoy working from home.  They invariably add that they are just as productive.  I catch myself wondering why they feel it is important to add that last bit of information.  Who’s to say they are or are not productive.  I had serious concerns about maintaining productivity when our company first went remote.  But the past six months showed me we have been able to keep up with our workload.  Especially in the second quarter, there was less work, but our collective workloads have grown, and we are working hard to meet our yearend obligations.  Through this experience, I learned to trust our co-workers to understand the company can’t survive unless each of them and each department produces.

If you are working outside the home, you’ve seen just as many changes.  Masks.  Plexiglass.  X’s on the floor.  Smaller numbers and distanced co-workers and customers.  Cleanliness, both personal and facility, has taken on a new meaning.  If you’re like me and try to find positives, I haven’t had even a sniffle during the pandemic.

Out of sight, out of mind

Here at Extract, we’ve found that our staff like to work from home and the result is we have less need for office space (although we have two years left on our lease).  Working remote means both the employee and the company need to find new ways to connect with our co-workers.  My big fear about a remote workforce is that we won’t be able to maintain a cohesive and shared goal-oriented mindset.  If we don’t have opportunities to know what’s going on with our co-workers, we can’t offer timely support, concern, or congratulations.  Keeping that sense of community and the company’s objectives in mind is so much easier when we can look each other in the eye; I am not talking about a Zoom meeting.

2021

Let’s be positive and assume that vaccines will work, that distribution channels are effective, and everyone who wants one, receives the vaccine.  Only then can we put COVID-19 in the rearview mirror.  Still, life will not be the same and many parts will only come back slowly.  For example, how anxious are you to sit in the middle seat of a crowded airplane?  How about jamming into your favorite bar or restaurant?  Concerts?  Church?  Gym?  Many people will think twice.

Because people can work effectively from home, many companies will, for economic reasons, decide to reduce overhead and shift parts of their workforce into a permanent remote workforce.  Many people like skipping their daily commute.  But what about those co-workers who live alone and feel isolated and lonesome?  I trust society will adjust and new outlets for human connection will arise.  One hundred years ago people figured it out.  Maybe that’s why the “roaring twenties” happened. 

People on the move

One trickledown effect of a growing and long lasting remote workforce is that employees will move to geographic locations that better fit their family life (live closer to parents/grandparents) or quality of life (hobbies).  Commercial real estate companies will suffer while moving and pod storage companies will prosper.  If you want to feel thankful for something, be thankful you are not a commercial office leasing agent.

Shape your future

I’ve always tried to control my future and with very mixed results.  COVID taught us all how futile our plans can be.  Still, it is possible to shape the future and to at least control how one reacts to a post-COVID reality.  2021 is almost here and it’s time to think about the trickledown impact on your workforce, on your employees, or on your personal and professional goals and responsibilities.  Many healthcare organizations face cashflow challenges they have never faced before.  COVID has been an all hands-on deck assignment.  Elective procedures have been postponed and while many of those procedures will be rescheduled, many will not and that represents forever lost revenue.  My guess is that your C-suite objectives for 2021 will continue to focus on A.) reducing the cost of healthcare through efficiencies B.) improving the quality of healthcare, and C.) recovering as much of the elective procedure lost revenue and to find new sources of revenue. 

Besides working on C-suite objectives, what ideas can you put forth to help the organization gain its lost momentum? 

Extract has some great ideas for those of you still dealing with faxed, scanned and paper documents.  Customers have reduced data and document handling costs by 50% and more.  They have improved their organization’s quality of care by delivering quality data to the EMR where clinical staff wants it and when they want it.  Start 2021 on a positive note by learning what can be done to streamline document and data workflows.