COVID-19 Impact on Pharmaceutical Packaging in Chemicals and Materials Industry

COVID-19 Impact on Ambulatory Surgical Centers in Healthcare Industry

  • Healthcare
  • Mar 01, 2021

COVID-19 is a type of communicable disease that created ripples throughout the world in early 2020 taking the lives of millions around the globe and infecting more. The disease is caused by the virus SARS CoV-2 is highly infectious and passes on through human interaction. It has been said to cause respiratory tract infection, causing damage to the upper and lower respiratory tract.

The spread of the disease brought the world to a halt affecting the medical services market in almost every part of the world. The ambulatory surgical centers market was impacted by the widespread disease. There were numerous unprecedented changes seen in the market and impacted the economy hugely.

The ambulatory surgical center market refers to the day care center which is a healthcare facility is focusing on delivering same-day surgical care including diagnostics and preventive care.  The growing need to reduce rising healthcare costs, growing demand for remote patient monitoring, and shift from inpatient to outpatient surgical procedures are acting as drivers for the ambulatory surgical centers market.

Impact on Price

There has been a whirlwind past months due to the emergence of COVID-19. The medical service provider firms are facing financial challenges as the disease brought the whole world to a full stop. The sales of few medical services experienced a downfall while others managed to stay afloat. According to Cerner Corporation's annual report, 2020 result estimates that its managed service segment grew by 21% and in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, successfully implemented the services to reduce the transmission of COVID-19.

Impact on Demand

The coronavirus pandemic left a huge impact on the ambulatory surgical centers market. The emergence of COVID-19 set some significant operational changes in how the services should be supplied. With the increase in the incidence of covid-19 itself and existing infectious diseases, the demand for ambulatory surgical care increased at a faster rate. Due to higher demand, the availability of these healthcare services is greatly affected. Due to rising cases of COVID 19 patients and growing geriatric population which are more susceptible to infection, it was advisable to prefer remote healthcare thus increased the demand of ambulatory surgical centers market to a great extent. The surging volume of patients suffering chronic diseases, increasing sedentary lifestyle, growing geriatric population has further increased the demand for ambulatory surgical centers market.

Impact on Supply

As the world came to a halt for almost six months due to the emergence of COVID-19, the supply chain could not escape the impact. The governments throughout the globe imposed a total lockdown to contain the spread of the disease. Consequently, the supply chain and third-party logistics came to a standstill due to the closure of borders. Even though the demand for ambulatory surgical care services was high, the availability was affected due to disruptions in the supply chain, trade, and travel restrictions. The supply of raw materials was also affected, due to which the device production was restricted. Bottlenecks in the supply were foreseen due to limited production. Still, some companies managed to overcome the challenges and saw high growth.

KEY INITIATIVES BY MARKET PLAYER DURING COVID-19

As the reality of COVID-19 dawned upon the world, the key players in the ambulatory surgical centers market swiftly planned for strategies to cope with the effect of the crisis. Major players in the market took the various initiatives to cope up with the situation.

  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched an initiative known as ‘Hospitals without Walls’ which is offering opportunities for the ambulatory surgical centres to play a vital role in reducing the COVID-19 crisis.
  • In July 2020, Healthcare Outcomes Performance Company and Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast entered into an agreement for development of ambulatory surgical centres.

These strategies helped the company in coping with the pandemic and ensure business operations, minimize the impact of COVID-19 and providing full support to government in their efforts to combat the disease and help the front line workers.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has impacted every market with no exception. The ambulatory surgical centers market has been affected the same. With increasing healthcare costs and rise in inpatient to outpatient, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases among other factors has brought people to go for ambulatory surgical care and has shown growth in the market. The trend has been suggested to show steady growth in upcoming years.