The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the health care industry around the world, with impacts still arising five years after the start of the pandemic. Pitt medicine and research, including UPMC and Pitt Student Health Services, have similarly adapted their health care systems in the aftermath of the global pandemic and quarantines.
During and after the pandemic, UPMC worked to quickly adapt to the changing medical realm, according to a UPMC spokesperson. Medical workers and Pitt scientists developed a range of different treatments with antibodies and steroids, among other research initiatives.
“Our contributions were critical to rapidly developing the best practices for caring for patients with COVID-19 worldwide,” a UPMC spokesperson said. “This presented an advantage for our hospitals and our patients, which continues today.”
Although telemedicine existed prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 made online medical appointments more prevalent in the wake of quarantines. UPMC followed the adoption of virtual medical visits, which are still in use today to expand UPMC’s patient outreach.
“We developed new technology to permit skilled specialists to remotely consult patients at the bedside in rural hospitals — extending UPMC’s world class care to communities hundreds of miles from our flagship hospitals, 24/7,” a UPMC spokesperson said.
Pitt’s SHS similarly implemented the possibility of telehealth medical services during the pandemic. Although SHS doesn’t have specific pandemic prevention practices, the center will “continue to keep [their] emergency preparedness up to date with CDC/WHO guidelines for medical offices,” Charles Guthrie, executive director of SHS, and Elizabeth Wettick, medical director of SHS, said.
During the pandemic, UPMC created a Post-COVID Recovery Clinic to monitor and treat patients with persisting COVID-19 symptoms. The clinic helps track the virus and its long-term complications to better understand the illness.
“Our physician-scientists are leading and contributing to multiple studies developing new treatments for the condition and offering our patients state-of-the-art clinical trials,” a UPMC spokesperson said.
Pitt pharmaceutical research broadened in its focus on viruses as a result of the pandemic, according to Joe Suyama, medical director for Pitt Vaccination and Health Connection Hub. Using pre-COVID research that focused on infectious diseases, Pitt researchers were able to tackle the virus easier. This established more efficient pathways for understanding viruses, which was a “legacy” of the pandemic.
“A lot of the work that was being done … was very helpful in ramping up the investigation and the idea of how to immunize against COVID-19,” Suyama said. “A lot of preparedness that’s going into research and development of plans and pathways [might be used] to combat the next pandemic.”
Suyama noted that Pitt created testing for COVID-19 in 2024 that could accurately and rapidly distinguish between baseline coronavirus and the pandemic virus. Coronavirus had already been present since the 2000s, but COVID-19 was a new species, thus increasing its morbidity and mortality.
“If somebody comes in with a fever or a cough, that’s nearly indistinguishable between influenza and other colds,” Suyama said. “This is important because it’s the only way to rapidly identify the cause.”
Five years later, Sumaya hopes that people have become more understanding about disease transmission reduction, both in community and hospital settings.
“We want to normalize the idea that preventative public health practices aren’t supposed to be a punishment,” Suyama said. “It’s supposed to benefit both you and the public in general. We just try to depoliticize the idea of personal protective equipment and doing good things for the health of the community.”
Suyama noted that one thing the pandemic is the “normalizing” of masks, despite some political controversy.
“I think the lessons that we learned were the appropriate use of protective gear, like masks and vaccinations,” Suyama said.
Suyama emphasized the adaptability of the United States, allowing the development of future practices based upon previous experiences.
“The pandemic is over, but we’re still seeing the medical consequences of it,” Suyama said. “The important thing for us to do is to take lessons from that and then look forward to seeing what’s going to happen in the future.”