Virtual family-centered rounds: a quality improvement initiative to adapt inpatient care during COVID-19 using a human-centred participatory design approach.

BACKGROUND: Family-centered rounds (FCR) are fundamental to pediatric inpatient care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we aimed to design and implement a virtual family-centered rounds (vFCR) process that allowed continuation of inpatient rounds while following physical distancing guidelines and preserving personal protective equipment (PPE). METHODS: A multidisciplinary team developed the vFCR process using a participatory design approach. From April through July 2020, quality improvement methods were used to iteratively evaluate and improve the process. Outcome measures included satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and perceived usefulness of vFCR. Data were collected via questionnaire distributed to patients, families, staff and medical staff, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Virtual auditors monitored time per patient round and transition time between patients as balancing measures. RESULTS: Seventy-four percent (51/69) of health care providers surveyed and 79% (26/33) of patients and families were satisfied or very satisfied with vFCR. Eighty eight percent (61/69) of health care providers and 88% (29/33) of patients and families felt vFCR were useful. Audits revealed an average vFCR duration of 8.4 min (SD = 3.9) for a single patient round and transition time between patients averaged 2.9 min (SD = 2.6). CONCLUSION: Virtual family-centered rounds are an acceptable alternative to in-person FCR in a pandemic scenario, yielding high levels of stakeholder satisfaction and support. We believe vFCR are a useful method to support inpatient rounds, physical distancing, and preservation of PPE that may also be valuable beyond the pandemic. A rigorous process evaluation of vFCR is underway.

Charitable Giving Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Philippine Context

This paper presents the results of a survey on altruism amidst economic difficulties during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The study looked at two cases of charitable giving: (1) intention to donate to a non-government COVID-19 vaccination program, and (2) food donation to a community pantry. A two-stage regression procedure was undertaken to identify the factors affecting the willingness to contribute to a vaccination program (first stage: binary logit regression) and the contribution amount (second stage: ordinary least squares). The binary logit regression was likewise used to identify donors' characteristics for the community pantries. The survey was conducted among 508 household heads in Metro Manila, Philippines in December 2021 using a multi-stage stratified sampling procedure. First, the study found that the proportion of respondents who expressed willingness to donate to a vaccination program is higher than the proportion of respondents who donated food to a community pantry, which could be due to the benefits (general reduction in the risk of contracting COVID-19) that donors also stood to gain from their contributions. Second, a past act of giving to a community pantry is not a robust predictor of donating to a vaccination program, implying that the decision to give depends on the specific charitable program, as supported by differing sets of robust predictors for the vaccination program (economic-related factors) and the community pantry (religiosity). Third, donating to a non-government COVID-19 vaccination program is income inelastic, implying that the donation is considered a basic consumption item.

Charitable Giving Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Philippine Context

This paper presents the results of a survey on altruism amidst economic difficulties during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The study looked at two cases of charitable giving: (1) intention to donate to a non-government COVID-19 vaccination program, and (2) food donation to a community pantry. A two-stage regression procedure was undertaken to identify the factors affecting the willingness to contribute to a vaccination program (first stage: binary logit regression) and the contribution amount (second stage: ordinary least squares). The binary logit regression was likewise used to identify donors' characteristics for the community pantries. The survey was conducted among 508 household heads in Metro Manila, Philippines in December 2021 using a multi-stage stratified sampling procedure. First, the study found that the proportion of respondents who expressed willingness to donate to a vaccination program is higher than the proportion of respondents who donated food to a community pantry, which could be due to the benefits (general reduction in the risk of contracting COVID-19) that donors also stood to gain from their contributions. Second, a past act of giving to a community pantry is not a robust predictor of donating to a vaccination program, implying that the decision to give depends on the specific charitable program, as supported by differing sets of robust predictors for the vaccination program (economic-related factors) and the community pantry (religiosity). Third, donating to a non-government COVID-19 vaccination program is income inelastic, implying that the donation is considered a basic consumption item.

Pandemic Politics in South Asia: Muslims and Democracy

In South Asia, entrenched social and political cleavages involving Muslims or particular groups of Muslims have shaped state efforts to address the global Covid-19 pandemic: Hindu nationalists blamed Muslims for introducing the virus to India;anti-Covid lockdowns extended severe constraints on civil liberties in Muslim-majority Kashmir;anti-state mullahs protested public-health restrictions in Pakistan;Taliban insurgents used the virus as a pretext to delegitimize Afghanistan’s elected government. If one pattern has prevailed across South Asia, however, it is a pattern pushing away from democratic forms of legitimacy: persistent and uneven applications of emergency power, in particular, have weakened the outlook for democracy.