STAT March 21, 2020
A dozen physicians at the epicenter of Italy’s Covid-19 outbreak issued a plea to the rest of the world on Saturday, going beyond the heartbreaking reports of overwhelmed health care workers there and a seemingly uncontrollable death toll to warn that medical practice during a pandemic may need to be turned on its head — with care delivered to many patients at home.
“Western health care systems have been built around the concept of patient-centered care,” physicians Mirco Nacoti, Luca Longhi, and their colleagues at Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo urge in a paper published on Saturday in NEJM Catalyst, a new peer-reviewed journal from the New England Journal of Medicine. But a pandemic requires “community-centered care.”
The experience...