COVID-19 and primary care physicians: adapting to rapid change in clinical roles and settings

With the emergence of COVID-19, drastic measures have been taken to create, deploy, and sustain a pandemic workforce as well as to continuously adapt this workforce in preparation for future needs (1). One major shift in primary care has been to deliver care via telemedicine. Another shift that has been more disruptive to primary care practice patterns, however, is the deployment of primary care physicians (PCPs) to hospitals in order to meet emergent care delivery needs. In many hospital and health systems, PCPs have been expected to join the hospital-based workforce and take on roles in emergency, hospitalist, and respiratory medicine as the pandemic has overwhelmed and depleted many hospitals’ existing workforce capacities. This article highlights challenges in such deployment efforts and proposes recommendations to help PCPs and health care organizations adapt so that they are able to effectively respond to potential upcoming pandemic waves.