Abstract:

The period of the pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 infection was a crossroads that fundamentally changed the natural course of activity of all economic sectors worldwide, and one of the areas deeply influenced was the health services sector. The health care provided to the consumers of health services proved to be insufficient and disproportionate in relation to the real needs of the population due to the pandemic, so that to the pre-existing deficiencies of the health systems in each state, was added a sudden increase in the demand for health services due to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the increased demand for health services during the pandemic and the limited supply of health care using the transversal method at the level of some European Union states. In addition, the magnitude of the health crisis is being analyzed and practical solutions are being sought for adapting and transforming healthcare into an appropriate service sector, including situations of global crisis. The demand for health services is quantified by analyzing the main health indicators (life expectancy at birth, mortality rate, preventable death rate) during the pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic, and health care is analyzed from the perspective of material and human resources (material costs sanitation, equipment, shortage of medical staff) in the two selected time periods.

The findings indicate that in general, in most European Union countries, there is a gap between the limited and insufficient supply of health care and the magnitude of the demand for health services due to the SARS-Cov-2 infection, which creates pressure in the medical sector. The results also suggest that in some countries the gap is more significant than in other states of the European Union, which can be explained by the measures addressed by the competent authorities, cultural differences and education of the population.

In this paper, the authors investigate several possible innovative solutions such as: artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) for triage systems, 3D printing technology, healthcare wearables, flexible manufacturing systems and bid data analytics, the use of telemedicine, the scaling of Internet of Thing (IoT) which creates a centralized information system for monitoring and finally, the use of leadership trainings, courses and competences as means to adapt fast to different situations.

This paper is original primarily because it examines in depth the magnitude of the health crisis in the European Union by analyzing the disproportion between the sharp increase in demand for health services due to SARS-Cov-2 infection and the limited supply of care, and in secondly, it proposes innovative solutions to prepare a health system to deal with major crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.