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by treesknees 1766 days ago
This is a pretty ignorant suggestion. It's like saying that my company should dramatically increase its software output without hiring software engineers. These are people, not robots. You must hire more skilled labor if you wish to expand the capacity which requires that labor.

If you're saying we should fill that labor requirement with low-skill medical technicians, you're misunderstanding the needs of the hospital. If you are ending up in the ER or ICU with covid, or any other cause, you are beyond the help of an at-home med tech, which is why you're at the hospital in the first place.
2 comments
bko 1766 days ago
We get more efficiency out of nearly every sector of the economy. We grow more food despite an ever decreasing number of farmers.

The problem is that the incentives aren't aligned with health care primarily due to third party payer system and onerous regulations.

You ever wonder why there is a line of people outside of urgent care every day to get tested for covid? Presumably, there are cheap tests that be administered at home without having to see a nurse or doctor. Or if you really can't do that you can train someone how to administer tests in a few hours and have that as a service. But in the US at least, it's nearly impossible to do these things. It took until April 2021 for the FDA to approve at home covid tests, and they're still not popular or available (at least I haven't seen them)

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...

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treesknees 1765 days ago
COVID testing is not the same thing. You don't need ER or ICU experience to administer one.
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tomp 1766 days ago
Medicine is a field notorious for its gatekeeping.

But a lot can be done. In Italy during the height of the pandemic, they "emergency graduated" 5th (or maybe 6th ... near the end) year medical students. I really wonder if there's any data whether they provided worse care after some on-the-job training than "fully educated" practitioners.

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treesknees 1765 days ago
It's not gatekeeping when you're talking about life or death emergency medical care. Taking students out of school isn't a solution, it's an act of desperation.

If I have a private pilots license and the pilot of my commercial aircraft is incapacitated, sure I'm technically more qualified than the others on the aircraft to try to perform an emergency landing. But that doesn't mean American Airlines should be expanding their routes because I could land a plane.

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