In a presentation at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) virtual conference, M. Bishr Omary, MD, reported on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health care industry, specifically in the gastroenterology field, and what was learned from the pandemic.

Dr Omary is the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and research at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the outgoing president of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA).

“No words that can describe the devastation that has been inflicted across the world,” Dr Omary began.

According to Dr Omary’s presentation, as of April 24, 2021, the US has made the largest contribution to the worldwide percentage of COVID-19-related deaths and infections. “The United States makes up 4.3% of the global population, and makes up 18.5% of the world deaths, and 22% of COVID-19 cases.”

He noted that global cases of COVID-19 have topped 145,933,932, with 1,091,392 deaths worldwide; the total number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 in the United States is now 571,812, and counting.

In addition, Dr Omary reported, “cases have gone down because of the vaccine in the US, but other countries have been inflicted severely, such as India and Brazil, because of limited vaccinations and health care.”

He noted that “COVID-19 has unmasked issues with access to health care and health care disparities.” According to data collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between March 2020 and March 2021, Black and Hispanic Americans suffered the most in terms of COVID-19-related deaths and infections.

“Health workers have suffered at the frontlines—more than 3600 US health workers died during COVID’s first year, and two-thirds of those deaths were people of color working as nurses and support staff,” Dr Omary reported.

He went on to point out other issues the United States continues to grapple with that have been highlighted by the pandemic, such as racism and health inequities. “This has been going on for centuries in the United States, but hopefully this is a time of awakening for everyone,” he said.

“On the positive side comes the utilization of telemedicine,” Dr Omary said. He presented 2 charts comparing the utilization of health care over the years, which began to pick up in 2013 with primary care visits, but “with COVID-19, health care visits came up 60%, and more than 50% of those visits were with telehealth.”

Dr Omary went on the explain how the pandemic impacted medical research. With all applicable resources shifting to finding a vaccine and caring for COVID-19 patients, the majority of medical research was put on hold. Endoscopies dropped to near zero, except for emergency cases. He further noted the impact on the endoscopy trainees, as they had to shift gears in practice, and deal with the risk of contracting the virus.

Some new and potentially positive impacts on the health care industry also include the Biden administration’s focus on medical funding, Dr Omary said. “President Biden is advocating for the establishment of several agencies,” he explained, sharing a Science chart detailing the significant projected increase of federal support and research in the 2022 budget request for National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and several other agencies and departments involved in scientific endeavors.

Dr Omary went on to report on the immensely positive impact of the vaccination, and “the silver lining of the pandemic is, it brought several GI societies together, such as ASGE, AASLD, ACG and AGA,” Dr Omary concluded. “We can’t forget about the essential workers and health care workers—thank you so much.”

—Angelique Platas

Reference:

Omary MB. Pandemic lessons learned in practice and research. Presented at Digestive Disease Week, May 21, 2021; Virtual.