The Lancet Neurology
Fecha de publicación: May 25, 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(20)30157-5
Autores: Angelo Antonini
Background: The ongoing spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is providing an opportunity to reassess and reconsider priorities in health-care systems.1 In the past two decades, high-income countries have developed the perception that we need to partly shift resources to chronic conditions and limit the number of hospital beds to admit only medical emergencies. This notion was based on the need to contain health-care spending and to care for an increasingly large ageing population, with chronic conditions becoming more common, particularly in neurology. The idea of making health care more efficient has resulted in a management shift toward short hospitalisation, early discharge, and substantial cuts to expensive intensive care units. Many neurology clinics have substantially reduced their number of hospital beds and neurologists often prioritise consultation in busy outpatient clinics. In some countries, including the UK, it has been cheaper for national health services to hire specialised nurses rather than train more physicians.
