COVID-19 | United Hospital Fund

The COVID-19 pandemic is touching every aspect of New York's health care system and broader community, and its effects will be long-lasting. This page includes links to various UHF efforts related to COVID-19: resources, analysis, and commentary. UHF staff will be updating this page as new resources become available.

We encourage everyone to stay safe and heed the advice of health professionals. For immediate and up-to-date information, please visit the coronavirus pages of the CDC, the New York State Department of Health, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Commentary: To Prepare for the Next Pandemic, Health Care Needs to Tackle Racism

Ram Raju, MD, the former senior vice president and community health investment officer at Northwell Health, writes that there is a need and an opportunity for health care leaders to confront racism.
Commentary

Health Insurance: Rethinking Goals Amid Interrupted Progress

United Hospital Fund president Anthony Shih, MD, writes about the need to rethink goals on health insurance coverage amid the disruption of COVID-19. This commentary also appears in the summer 2020 issue of UHF's Blueprint newsletter.
Commentary

Post-Acute Care and COVID-19: An Already Fraught Decision Becomes Even More Difficult

Lynn Rogut, UHF director of quality and team lead for quality and efficiency in the Quality Institute, describes the challenges surrounding post-acute care now that CMS has waived its new post-acute care regulations during this public health emergency; this commentary explains the regulations as well as the downside of delaying them.
Commentary

Commentary: Critical Connections: Coordinating Health and Housing Needs during COVID-19

United Hospital Fund program manager Kristina Ramos-Callan looks at the link between housing and health in the COVID-19 era and highlights community innovations that can help meet urgent needs.
Commentary

Commentary: Examining the State of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Robin Gelburd, the President of FAIR Health, shares some of her organization’s recent data on telehealth and offers insights on how this important service is evolving during the pandemic.
Commentary

Commentary: A Post-COVID-19 Primary Care Agenda: First Steps

David A. Gould, former Senior Vice President for Program at UHF and Board Chair of the Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC), and Carol Raphael, a Senior Advisor at Manatt Health Solutions and Vice Chair of PCDC, suggest a number of actions to not only restore primary care capacity but transform it in ways that will meet new demands.
Commentary

UHF Analysis: Medicaid Enrollment During the Great Recession and COVID-19

This HealthWatch brief from UHF’s Medicaid Institute examines New York’s Medicaid enrollment growth during the “Great Recession” of 2007–2009 and the impact of state and federal actions taken then, in an effort to shed light on what to expect during the current economic downturn.
HealthWatch Brief

Commentary: Community Testing and Contact Tracing in a Time of Distrust

Shoshanah Brown and Rose Gasner of AIRnyc make the case that community testing and contact tracing must be made available to all, particularly those hit hardest by COVID-19.
Commentary

Commentary: Grandparents and Traumatized Children: Where Two Epidemics Converge

Carol Levine, a senior fellow at United Hospital Fund, and Suzanne C. Brundage, director of UHF's Children’s Health Initiative, on how the convergence of COVID-19 and the opioid epidemic is affecting grandparents and the children in their care.
Commentary

News: UHF Testimony Addresses COVID-19's Impact on Minority Communities

UHF President Tony Shih, MD, and Chad Shearer, senior vice president for policy and program, submitted written testimony to a New York State joint legislative hearing that explored solutions to COVID-19's disproportionate impact on minority communities.
Article

Commentary: How COVID-19 Affects People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Ron Colavito, president & CEO of Access: Supports for Living, and Arthur Y. Webb, executive director of New York Integrated Network for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (NYIN), look at the pandemic's heavy toll on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Commentary

Commentary: COVID-19, Cities, and Health

Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, Clinical Professor of Global Health at the NYU School of Global Health, and Anthony Shih, MD, president of UHF, on how cities can learn from the current crisis and become more resilient.
Commentary

Commentary: COVID-19 Deepens Existing Health Disparities

Lisa David, the president and CEO of Public Health Solutions, examines how the pandemic is exacerbating existing health disparities.
Commentary

Commentary: During the Pandemic, Home Health Aides Deserve Respect, Protection, and Fair Pay

Kathryn Haslanger, the CEO of JASA, on the essential role of home health aides during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they can be better supported.
Commentary

Report: New York’s “Other” Individual Market Needs an Update

As consumers seek to replace lost job-based health insurance coverage or find new plans during the pandemic, a new UHF report recommends a series of upgrades for New York’s “off-exchange” market for individuals, including the elimination of enrollment barriers for immigrants who are not permitted to get coverage through the NY State of Health marketplace.
Report

Commentary: Payer Actions Can Help Sustain Primary Care During and After COVID-19

Christopher F. Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, and UHF president Anthony Shih, MD, examine COVID-19's effect on small primary care practices and how payer actions can help sustain them. The piece is being co-published by the Milbank Memorial Fund.
Commentary

Commentary: Will COVID-19 Change the Way We Look at Mental Health and Substance Misuse?

Kristin Woodlock, CEO of Woodlock & Associates and a consultant at the National Council for Behavioral Health, looks at how COVID-19 is changing behavioral health.
Commentary

Commentary: Community health centers on the brink

Robert M. Hayes, president and CEO of Community Healthcare Network, shines a light on the critical situation faced by community health centers during the pandemic.
Commentary

Consumer Guide: Maintaining health insurance coverage during the pandemic

Practical advice for New Yorkers on how to replace lost health insurance coverage or find a new health plan during these perilous times. Available in English, Español (Spanish), 中文 (Simplified Chinese), Pусский (Russian), বাংলা (Bengali), and Kreyòl Ayisyen (Haitian Creole).
Consumer Guide (English)
Guía para el consumidor (Spanish)
消费者指南 (Simplified Chinese)
Руководство для потребителей (Russian)
সভোিোর্ৈর জিু একটি েোইে (Bengali)
Yon Gid pou Kliyan (Haitian Creole)

Commentary: Tony Shih on questions for the future raised by the COVID-19 pandemic

Tony Shih, president of UHF, considers what we can learn from the pandemic response so far—and how we can be better prepared for such events in the future. This commentary also appears in the spring 2020 issue of UHF's Blueprint newsletter.
Commentary

Links: Online resources for parents and pediatric providers

To aid parents and pediatric and social service providers as they respond to numerous challenges arising from COVID-19, UHF's Children’s Health Initiative has compiled two lists of resources from trusted sources.
Resources for parents
Resources for pediatric providers

Video: Keeping health care workers safe

On March 22nd, Eileen Sullivan-Marx—UHF board member, dean of NYU’s nursing school, and president of the American Academy of Nursing—spoke on MSNBC about what it takes to keep our first-line health care workers safe.
MSNBC video (via youtube)