Healthcare Transformation in the Post-Coronavirus Pandemic Era

The effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic globally are striking as it impacts greatly the social, political, economic, and healthcare aspects of many countries. The toll of this pandemic quantified with human lives and suffering (1), the psychosocial impact (2), and the economic slowdown (3) constitute strong reasons to translate experiences into actionable lessons, not simply to prevent similar future crises, but rather to improve the whole spectrum of population health and healthcare delivery. This is the third coronavirus (CoV) outbreak of international concern in 20 years, after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) and the Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV), in addition to other viral outbreaks such as Zika virus and Ebola virus over the last decade. It becomes clear that infectious diseases should be considered among the most important health hazards that we will need to continue facing in the foreseeable future (4). Thus, the transformation of various aspects at the individual as well as the societal and governmental levels seems inevitable.