ASPO Abstracts
Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Staffing for Cancer Screening and Follow Up Services: Preliminary Findings from a Large Federally Qualified Health Center
Category: Cancer Health Disparities
Conference Year: 2023
Abstract Body:
We investigated the impact of COVID-19 on staffing for cancer screening and follow up within an urban federally qualified health center (FQHC) that operates 25 clinics and serves more than 250,000 patients across two Southern California counties. We conducted an email survey with clinic leadership to compare variant phase (after Dec 2021) clinic hours to pre-pandemic (Mar 2018) clinic hours. We report by clinic (n=17): # of working days/week as well as the % change in weekly clinic hours. We also conducted in-depth telephone interviews (n=19) with FQHC staff leading programs focused on cancer screening, population health, and patient safety and access to explore COVID-19 effects on care between Spring 2020 to Summer 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically content analyzed Prior to COVID-19, clinics were typically open 5 days a week from 9am to 6 pm (range 5 to 7 working days). By December 2021, clinics reported a 10 to 40% decrease in clinic hours (county 1: 25 to 40% decrease (11 clinics); county 2: 10 to 40% decrease (6 clinics)). Findings from qualitative interviews revealed that early in the pandemic, most staff (clinical and administrative) worked from home due to local and state shutdown protocols. Telehealth was implemented and mostly acute/emergency-based needs were addressed on-site at clinics, with staffing limited by safety practices. Many clinic staff were redeployed to call centers to assist with large call volumes during various pandemic surges or to assist with community-wide COVID testing, and vaccination efforts. Later in the pandemic, COVID-related illness, burn-out, furloughs, and resignations further created staffing shortages. By spring of 2022, in-person care began returning to normal levels, however, staffing levels remained lower than pre-pandemic times, as the FQHC sought to replace staff "lost
Keywords: COVID-19, Cancer screening, Medical Services