Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Jun 26, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 9, 2024 - Sep 3, 2024
Date Accepted: Nov 10, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The Impact of COVID-19 Regulatory Reporting Burden: A Comparative Study of a Small Independent Hospital and a Large Network Hospital
ABSTRACT
Background:
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, hospitals encountered numerous challenges that compounded their difficulties. Some of these challenges directly impacted patient care, such as the need to expand capacities, adjust services, and utilize new knowledge to save lives in an ever-evolving situation. Additionally, hospitals faced regulatory challenges.
Objective:
Objective:
This article presents the findings of a qualitative study that compares the effects of reporting requirements on a small independent hospital (SIH) and a large, networked hospital (LNH) during the pandemic.
Methods:
Methods:
We employed both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The researchers conducted a total of 51 interviews, which were thematically analyzed. We quantified the changes in regulatory reporting requirements over the first 14 months of the pandemic.
Results:
Results:
These requirements placed a significant time burden on key clinical personnel at the SIH, consequently reducing the time available for patient care. Conversely, the LNH had dedicated non-clinical staff responsible for reporting duties, and their robust health information system facilitated this work.
Conclusions:
Conclusions:
The discrepancy in health information technology (HIT) capabilities suggests that there may be significant institutional inequities affecting smaller hospitals' ability to respond to a pandemic and adequately support public health efforts. The healthcare policy implications of these findings are discussed. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.