Editorial

Abstract

The pandemic had an undeniable impact on all levels of our lives, but its effects will linger far beyond its expected end. The arrival of SARS-CoV2 prompted a change in the way medicine is done, pushing it toward digital transformation and adaptation at a speed that no one had planned. What should have taken years became a race of weeks or days, and its consequences will be cause for study and analysis in the future to come.
Take, for example, what the average patient does when he or she has a health problem. In the last decade, care at the hospital level has increased by 30%. Instead of seeking help at the primary level, it was not uncommon for patients to go to the emergency room of a hospital to find a solution to their ailments, overloading an already saturated system. This, without taking into account that we are focused on solving the problem, instead of preventing it. With the arrival of the pandemic, going to the hospital was significantly reduced, due to the fear of contagion among many other reasons. Care shifted to a virtual mode, prevention took precedence and hospitals returned to the function for which they were designed. The care of complicated patients who require the services of a second, third or fourth level.
Whether this change will be permanent or a temporary response to a specific situation remains to be seen. Let us hope that governments take advantage of the situation generated by an unsuspected situation to promote agendas that will benefit the population to a greater extent. These short- and long-term projects should focus not only on health care, but on all levels. Medical education, taking advantage of the boom in new virtual platforms, and research are just some of the many areas that have been abandoned or relegated to the background and that the situation we have experienced has led us to consider under a new prism. That of accepting, as in the case of primary care, that the key is to prevent and not to treat when the problem is already knocking on our doors.