Calls are going out for retired healthcare workers to help fight the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic.

The idea is to help triage and manage virtual care sites to triage, refer appropriate patients to drive through testing sites that are available and do remote follow up care in an effort to offload those steps so that direct care personnel can tend to the most urgent cases in ERs and hospitals.

States are issuing similar call for help

However, despite attempts to remove or temporarily suspend rules and regulations during the emergency, there are still barriers to the expeditious recruitment of volunteers.

Coronacorps recruitment barriers include:

1. The digital divide particularly in rural areas

2. Licensure renewal

3. Credentialing

4. Malpractice coverage

5. At risk age population

6. Compensation issues, if applicable

7. Reskilling concerning day to day changes in COVID screening and referrals

8. Daily changes in testing access and facilities

9. Online follow up and patient reported outcomes access

10. EMR training and credentialing

11. Understaffed and overburdened medical staff offices and IT offices 

12. Unstable or inadequate bandwidth degrading online audio/video integrity

13. Poor UI/UX on websites asking for volunteers discouraging users

14. Lack of telemedicine training and use

15. Unrealistic expectations about retired specialists taking calls outside of their areas of expertise

Here is the tab for Coronacare.

Overcoming and completing these requirements will take time and accelerated changes in the rules if we are to rapidly ramp up supply to meet the surge demand. However, the processes and systems we create should not be lost or forgotten and should be applicable for the next epidemic or mass casualty catastrophe, let alone rethinking our dysfunctional and cruel sickcare system of systems. Creating a reserve civilian medical corps would be a useful step.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Twitter@ArlenMD and Facebook.