Life Sciences and Healthcare Search Activity Remained Robust During Pandemic Year
March 11, 2021 – As we round the corner to close out Q1, the economic picture seems to be slowly improving. But what is going to light the match in the last three quarters of 2021? For executive recruiters, life sciences and healthcare organizations hold keys to the answer. Eager for investment, far more resilient than the S&P 500 during the crisis, and poised for a coming sea of divestitures, the life sciences space has boundless energy and pent-up talent demand – just as many organizations are getting the attention, and financing, from private equity firms seeking value investments. It also happened to be the one sector that accelerated during the pandemic year.
A new report just released from Tatum takes a deep dive into the sector to analyze what has happened so far, and then offers four predictions for the year ahead.
According to Tatum, as it looked back at the most immediate consequences of COVID-19, life sciences organizations were hamstrung in the early going by social distancing protocols in ways that tech or engineering firms, for example, were not. For one, companies actively involved in clinical trials were forced to deal with potentially disastrous disruption. At the height of the crisis, in fact, more than half of the companies in the space said they had paused recruitment for clinical trials, and three quarters said they had halted site activation for the majority of their trials.
For life sciences organizations engaged in earlier stages of research and development, the experience was more mild. So, while broadly speaking, the global pandemic hemmed in the growth forecasts for life sciences companies across the board, that impact was for the most part uneven.
Four Key Trends
Of course, most of this so far has been looking in the rearview mirror. What’s next on the road ahead? Tatum offers four key trends will likely come to maturity in 2021 — and potentially reshape the life sciences space.
Divestitures on the Rise
COVID-19 brought far-reaching changes upon companies across the board, and life sciences companies are no exception. Despite the general resilience of the sector, many companies were forced to consolidate their portfolios and make hard choices about priorities. In short, Tatum says managing a more limited set of R&D resources may be one of the short- and near-term consequences of the global pandemic. Life sciences companies will therefore look to divest assets, streamlining their operations in order to focus on core competencies. For many, that will seem like the most desirable path to securing much-needed capital — and securing the future of their highest-priority projects.
Higher-Value, Lower-Volume Dealmaking
The fiscal year preceding the global pandemic shattered all records in terms of deal value in the life sciences space ($231 billion). And yet, while values ran sky-high, overall deal volume was actually quite low — down 14 percent from the previous year. Most analysts at the time chalked the discrepancy up to a disconnect between buyers and sellers around valuation prices. At present, it isn’t clear the extent to which, how or if this wrinkle has been somehow ironed out in the course of the global pandemic. It probably hasn’t. And it might prove to be an obstacle in the way of new deals going forward.
Life Sciences Tech in the Crosshairs
According to Deloitte, life sciences companies themselves made 37 acquisitions of tech companies in 2019, and that stat dovetails with a broader trend seen in PE in recent years: Namely, while the number of exits has increased across virtually every industry, the most significant increases in exit values have all been in solidly tech-centered fields: medtech, consumer tech, IT, IT-enabled services and so on. As tech becomes increasingly interwoven into the very fabric of healthcare delivery, it stands to reason that M&A activity at the intersection of tech and health (that is, in the bailiwick of life sciences) could be red hot. According to Tatum, expect a lot of energy and attention from PE firms early in 2021.
The “X” Factor
So much of what has been seen so far suggests a potentially robust dealmaking season in the year ahead. And yet, there’s also so much that remains entirely unknown, and even unknowable. How, exactly, the experience of COVID-19 will influence the future behavior of life sciences companies themselves is a case in point, according to Tatum research, and worth mentioning since it surfaces one of the more interesting takeaways from the global pandemic in the life sciences space. That is, these companies actually don’t have to go through traditional M&A channels in order to access the resources, assets or backing to drive strategic goals.
Demand for Strong Leaders
Executive search in the life sciences industry has been extremely buoyant throughout the pandemic. Joe Coulter, COO of Coulter Partners, a life sciences specialist search firm with global offices, said that the “race for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments worldwide, a need for faster global regulatory approvals and the surge in manufacturing capacity requirements to accommodate the production of drugs, both COVID-19 related and in many other therapeutic spaces, have all fed the continuing huge demand for strong leadership.” He said the firm has also seen a surge in digital needs across the sector – from early-stage companies who are ‘born digital’ to accelerated transformation in the largest pharma and medtech companies.
“It is a privilege to work in this most innovative and robust sector, and to see the positive impact of our work building teams that directly influence human health and patient outcomes globally,” he said. In 2020, Coulter Partners conducted roughly 300 senior leadership engagements across the spectrum of CEO, board, and C-suite roles. Some core themes among them: partnering with several of the key players developing COVID-19 vaccines on commercial, R&D and manufacturing roles; serving the VC investor community through senior hiring for portfolio companies and their own investing teams; huge growth in working with PE funds to build leadership teams and boards for MBO, LBO, carve-out and turnaround scenarios; working with clients active in advanced modalities such as cell and gene therapy; and dealing with a surge in demand for biologics manufacturing and technical operations leaders.
“Coming through an entire interview process without shaking hands with potential new team members or seeing the offices
where they will be working can leave candidates with a gap in their understanding of a company’s culture,” Mr. Coulter said. As such, clients have been taking innovative approaches to solving this problem. “Some are having informal office walk throughs – either live from camera phones or recorded and sent to candidates,” he added. The importance of informal interactions during the interview process should not be underestimated, he noted. “This should continue past the acceptance, introducing more team members to candidates, especially those that are deemed to be culture carriers for the organization.”
Digitally enabled productivity gains have been widely reported and accelerated during the pandemic, and hiring processes have adapted successfully, too, with innovative approaches to virtual on-boarding, an emphasis on creating inclusive cultures and an increased focus on equity and diversity. “This has brought high demand for our specialized assessment capabilities and tools, and increased confidence in more flexible attitudes, around location for example,” said Mr. Coulter.
“Many of our clients have endorsed the operational efficiencies and successes of virtual hiring and seen improved productivity at executive and board level as they have adapted. 2020 was a year of rapid transformation with significant disruption and stresses put on leaders across the world,” he said. The outlook for 2021 and beyond, according to Mr. Coulter, “suggests a year of creating a next normal, rather than a return to the recent past of 2019.” The pandemic has allowed organizations to look at talent pools more globally, he said. “Relocating senior leaders is now no longer a prerequisite, as virtual models are adopted more widely and hybrid organizations ramp up – with improvements in remote and on-site working efficiencies.”
Embracing ‘Leadership Span’
“Executive search has been very active in the healthcare space since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Dana Krueger, leader of global healthcare business at Russell Reynolds Associates. “Initially there was some pause as the sector was singularly focused on battling COVID-19 on the front lines. In the first weeks and months of the pandemic, we observed some strategic pivots and tactical maneuvers undertaken by healthcare companies. But this pause in executive search was temporary.”
In fact, she said, for some parts of the sector, 2020 turned out to be a record- breaking year, including the venture, IPO and M&A worlds despite virtual due diligence and negotiations. “Overall, there has been a steady if not accelerated demand for leadership within healthcare/life sciences to help navigate the crisis and lead in the new reality,” she added.
In this period of step-change, leaders need to be even more agile while maintaining a laser-focus on the long-term vision and outcome. “As sustainability has emerged as the leadership imperative of our time, the best leaders in the healthcare/life sciences space have been able to ‘see the forest for the trees’ and anchor their business vision and strategy firmly in the purpose of their firm,” Ms. Krueger said. “Overall, leaders that focus on results with respect to people, planet and profit will not only thrive but have the greatest impact within and beyond their singular firms. For CEOs and senior executives to succeed, we have been talking about ‘agility’ as a critical leadership competency for some time in the context of the VUCA world that has emerged in the last decade.”
“While the dynamic nature and unpredictability of the external environment has accelerated to an even more frenetic level with COVID-19, the pandemic has also added a significant and important new dimension to the leadership challenge, namely, that of building and leading organizational culture and development in a virtual setting,” Ms. Krueger said. “The most effective leaders of today embrace their ‘leadership span’—namely, their ability to be strategic yet practical, risk tolerant within the context of the experiment at hand, leading from the front while allowing leaders to emerge and have impact independent of hierarchy, and, above all, be inclusive, open and authentic in every engagement and relationship.”
Increasing Search Activity
Aside from a slight disruption during the first month of the pandemic, executive search in life sciences and healthcare has been healthy over the past year, according to Jason Hersh, managing director and CEO of Klein Hersh International. “We have seen an increase in activity each quarter.” In fact, Klein Hersh had its strongest year in two decades in 2020 and according to Mr. Hersh January 2021 was the firm’s best month ever. That must be music to the ears of the firm’s private equity sponsor New State Capital Partners which took a stake in Klein Hersh in November.
“The foundation of this robust growth is the extraordinary scientific work that is being done every day to improve human health and address some of the world’s greatest health challenges,” said Mr. Hersh. This includes remarkable progress across a range of therapeutics, as well as artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled drug discovery, gene editing, precision medicine, and many other fields. “As companies work to turn scientific discoveries into the medicines that treat and cure disease, and innovation in the healthcare industry further escalates, the need for top talent will grow even further.
Our role as executive recruiters in the healthcare and life sciences ecosystem has never been more important,” he said. The most significant challenge is establishing cultural fit between candidates and prospective new employers during the interview process, Mr. Hersh said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the manner in which candidates can learn about a prospective company’s culture. Face-to-face office visits and lunch/dinner meetings with key team members have been replaced by virtual meetings on Zoom,” he said. The good news: By using technology creatively, candidates can find unique ways to overcome the hurdles of the current environment to gain a better sense of a company’s culture. “The COVID-19 pandemic affirmed the enduring value of science in our society,” said Mr. Hersh. That will enhance organizational cultures over time, said Mr. Hersh, which will act as a lure to attract the best and brightest talent.
The Right Stuff
“Our life sciences clients’ high, pre-pandemic demand for select talent never diminished, especially in the areas of discovery, translational science, and medicine and clinical development,” said Cliff Miras, co-founder and managing partner of Cornerstone Search Group. Some disadvantages to remote working, according to Mr. Miras: While Zoom, Google Meets and other platforms provide an effective means and solid substitute for face-to-face meetings, they will never provide the same comprehensive depth and feel for the candidate’s presence and uniqueness as an in-person interview. On the flip side: “Working virtually provides a better opportunity to balance work and personal life, offers better quality of life, less distractions, happier team members, allows for more focused and productive meetings, and more time to think and work,” he said.
‘Requiring talent to relocate and/or work onsite will dwindle as the strength of the results generated by key talent during the pandemic regardless of where they reside or will or will not work continues to strengthen,” Mr. Miras said. “The pandemic has magnified the importance of possessing the right combination of ‘personal capabilities’ for a leader to be effective, such as being present, engaged, accountable, accessible, adaptable, approachable, unambiguous.”
Enabling a More Efficient Search Process
“Immediately following the lock down in March 2020, search activity that was ongoing continued,” said Steve Hochberg, CEO and founder of Caliber Associates. “But most new search activity came to a screeching halt as companies were transitioning their teams to working remotely and putting systems in place to address key business issues.” By June, however, search activity in life sciences resumed at a steady pace and activity has returned to a robust level since the beginning of 2021, he said.
“Clearly substituting Zoom interaction for face-to-face meetings has its limitations,” Mr. Hochberg said. “There are times where candidates can be preoccupied or multi-tasking during Zoom meetings which can be distracting. Additionally, a great deal can be lost with respect to the nuances of body language that do not translate well over Zoom. With respect to the advantages of working virtually, there is much greater flexibility with regard to scheduling meetings and interviews with candidates as travel schedules and commuting times have been eliminated from the equation. This has enabled the search process to move quicker and more efficiently.”
Individuals who are self-starters, very disciplined and well organized are thriving in today’s environment, said Mr. Hochberg. “Without question, self-starters and leaders who can work in an autonomous work environment while being inclusive of communications with colleagues are likely to do quite well. Individuals who exhibit a level of patience and adaptability with personal challenges that colleagues are experiencing also are most likely to excel in this current environment,” he added.
Pandemic as a Catalyst for Growth
“Clearly no one wants to see a pandemic rage across the globe, but it has acted as a catalyst for growth and urgency in the life sciences sector,” said Adam Bloom, president of The Stevenson Group. “The industry as a whole has been more dynamic than ever, and there seems to be an acceleration around innovation and investment. The talent market is tight, and both mature markets and next-gen innovation need best-in-class leadership. This makes for a very healthy environment for the search industry supporting this sector” it has meant good times.
The long-term impact of COVID-19 on the life sciences sector is still unknown, but everyone has a new appreciation for the business of science, said Mr. Bloom. “Curing cancer and diabetes was never enough. The pandemic has brought people to their knees and resulted in a more robust understanding and appreciation for the value brought to them by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.” And one silver lining, he said, is that “the remote work environment we’ve found ourselves in has shed light on the ability for talent to contribute effectively without being physically on-site, and I believe this knowledge will allow companies to focus on the best talent, as opposed to limiting their searches to the best talent that is willing to commute or relocate.” This virtual environment is likely here to stay, he said.
What kind of leaders are thriving in this environment? According to executive recruiters, there isn’t only one kind of leader that is thriving, but there are some consistent attributes of those who are successful. “First, I believe the best leadership during a crisis
is done from the front. A leader needs to demonstrate a positive, optimistic, yet realistic view of the world and help the team see the forest through the trees,” said Mr. Bloom. “They need a heathy dose of empathy guiding their interactions and overall messaging to their teams or company. It is important to acknowledge that everyone is navigating their own personal challenges, and the right leaders understand this and ensure each person feels well looked after and cared for. Your story matters, too. As in most cases, multi-step thinkers will likely prevail. Solving real-time problems helps a business navigate the day-to-day, but a leader needs to be thinking and planning for what is around the corner. I believe the leaders who got too caught up in keeping the lights on during this time, instead of thinking big picture, will come to regret the short-term thinking throughout these troubling times.”
A Steady Market Prevailed
“We continue to see steady business although there was disruption in this segment as there was in the rest of the economy,” said Bob Clarke, CEO of Furst Group. “Certainly, there was some disruption as people had to manage their businesses and workforces differently at the same time as trying to balance their own family needs. The market, however, remained somewhat steady.”
Once the pandemic is over there will be many who will reassess their career and serving on the front lines of such an event again. “Not necessarily from a professional perspective but a personal one,” said Mr. Clarke. “The worry, fear and concern for one’s safety will be front and center for time to come. How this translates into new business models for care delivery for example are just now being realized with much more disruption to come,” he said.
Not all of this will be bad, however. “Those who are well-grounded personally tend to be far more resilient to this upheaval,” Mr. Clarke said. “From a leadership perspective, individuals who are able to see out into the future and to lead their organizations in such a way to take advantage of opportunities to embrace a ‘new normal’ are far away the best positioned from a career perspective.”
Crisis Leaders
At the outset of the pandemic there was certainly a slowdown in volume as organizations focused on dealing with COVID-19 and faced significant financial pressures, according to Dr. Bernard Godley, lead physician executive and academics & life sciences practice leader for AMN Leadership Solutions. “Over the past several months we have seen a significant increase in search volume as crisis situations have spotlighted the need for effective, flexible leaders,” he said. As a result, according to recruiters, organizations are seeking new leadership skills that are better suited to the current environment, resulting in increased demand.
“The pandemic has absolutely added additional hurdles in the leadership recruiting process preventing essential relationship-building activities such as candidate presentation meetings and in-person interviews,” Dr. Godley said. “Those constraints can reduce organizational confidence in searches, with the feeling that they will result in lower quality candidates.” But remote searches also have many benefits. Organizations are finding that video technology enables them to save thousands of dollars on hotels and airfare for candidate interviews, he said. “Searches can also be completed more quickly, leading to a more streamlined process,” he added.
There are a bevy of impacts on the life science/healthcare sectors as we look forward, from long-term financial challenges to more challenging recruiting processes to burnout across organizational levels. “This also presents an opportunity for adept leaders to set their organization up for success in the future,” said Dr. Godley. Expanding lean recruiting principles to streamline the process and target better talent is a critical step. “Additionally, I recommend looking beyond traditional candidate pools. The skills necessary to succeed in a post-pandemic environment will be different and leveraging outside expertise to deliver the proper agility and outside-the-box thinking will be beneficial to those that choose this route.”
Additionally, financial impacts will affect healthcare and life sciences for many years to come. The American Hospital Association projects total hospital/system losses to exceed $300 billion for all of 2020. “The healthcare and life sciences sectors have to embrace a new way of life, starting with simpler items like embracing telehealth opportunities, but also thinking more critically about how decisions are made and policies are created,” said Dr. Godley. “Leadership discussions should include a full range of invested parties to ensure that all viewpoints are heard, and to seek consistency with regards to immediate decisions and long- term policies. Input from a wide array of viewpoints can generate broad solutions for priorities such as revenue diversification that will contribute to sustainable financial stability and growth,” he said.
Competition for Talent
“When the pandemic hit last March, we saw a pause immediately following the mass shutdowns as leaders got their bearings and tried to understand the potential impact COVID-19 had on their businesses,” said Mr. Bloom of The Stevenson Group. “Following Q2 board meetings, those who felt their business models were sound and could withstand the uncertainty of the pandemic started to move forward again. We then saw a major surge of activity come back in the second half of 2020 due to continued fundraising from both pri- vate equity and venture capital firms combined with pent up demand for senior leadership to meet growing demand for their products and services. The competition for healthcare and life science executives continues to grow, and the clients we’re working with are getting creative in how they’re thinking about their org structures and what their short- and long-term hiring strategies look like.”
The pandemic has forced organizations who never would have thought to work remotely and operate virtually to do exactly that, and, in Mr. Bloom’s opinion, it has been a blessing in disguise. “The biggest benefit to the workforce is that this shift to remote has enabled the talent pool to open up to a national level, allowing us and our clients to identify and recruit talent in different regions that were not previously attainable,” he said. “This culture shift could be a net-plus if leadership teams stay flexible as they think about building diverse, high-performing teams.”
Hiring Pace is Picking Up
“Unsurprisingly, we saw executive search slow at the onset of the pandemic; healthcare leaders were focused on managing the safety of their workforce and the challenges of providing essential care while treating an influx of contagious COVID-19 patients,” said Maureen Ryan, a partner in the healthcare and academic services practice at Odgers Berndtson. “By late spring or early summer, however, we saw a renewed focus on recruiting, and the pace has continued to pick up. That said, the focus remains on filling existing vacancies: we’ve seen only moderate increases in newly created roles.”
“Initially, the move to remote interviewing was a cause for concern among both our recruiters and our clients,” Ms. Ryan said. “But since meeting candidates in person was simply not a viable option, everyone has had to adapt. Knowing that our clients consider getting to know people over Zoom harder than in person, we have begun to take a more aggressive approach to vetting candidates on our clients’ behalf. This has included working additional Zoom interviews into the process and putting a lot more time and energy into referencing, even using our AI technology platform to support the process.”
“First and foremost, the pandemic has changed expectations about what a normal work environment looks like,” said Nick Brill, a partner in Odgers Berndtson’s life sciences and healthcare practices. “For nearly every level, from hourly workers to board members, remote work and flexible hours are much more acceptable than they were a year ago,” he said. This may lead to more structural workforce changes in the future. “Since physical workspace in hospitals is nearly always in short supply, and since many back-office functions had already been moved offsite before the pandemic, it will be interesting to see whether hospitals reduce their emphasis on physical back-office locations in favor of work-from-home options.” It is potentially a big cost savings for cash-strapped health systems in densely populated areas, and could effect a change in the geographical distribution of back office teams.
Another clear change Mr. Brill says pertains to virtual health encounters, which are changing the types of interactions seen between clinicians and patients, and therefore for the types of relationships they form. “If reimbursements for virtual health
visits remain profitable for providers going forward, we expect to see virtual health continue, accompanied by a spike in remote monitoring and testing capabilities,” he said. “Anticipating this change, numerous start-up firms are building and marketing app- based care capabilities. These start up technologies will disrupt traditional care patterns, especially as large group practices and health systems integrate app-based care, virtual visits, and remote monitoring into their standard practices. It’ll be interesting to see whether the proliferation of tech-facilitated care change patient expectations about convenience when it comes to face-to-face care and place a greater emphasis on patient satisfaction than we’ve seen previously.”
Clear Winners
“Executive search firms have been active during the pandemic,” said Mike Hartz, president and CEO of HARTZ Search. “We noticed a brief, two- to three-week pause when cities across the country were establishing shelter in place orders, but once those were eased business continued to be consistent and then picking up towards the end of summer. Our firm experienced strong growth in 2020 in executive search, and steady to slightly lower growth in interim leadership engagements and consulting services,” he noted.
“I think we will continue to see additional consolidation of systems, M&A activity and hospitals looking to recover from their losses,” Mr. Hartz said. “On the positive side, I think we have seen more collaboration between systems, payors, physicians, GPOs, and competitors during this time to ensure their patients, employees and communities had testing sites available, access to PPE, working hard to reach underserved populations than in recent past. I think we will see organizations working hard to improve messaging to patients, employees and communities and an increased interest in emergency/ disaster preparedness, multiple lines of supply chain and increased need/ demand for analytics and ways to share the information securely.”
Mr. Hartz said that leaders who understand and demonstrate agility in their decision-making, building teams, leading change and transparent communication during challenging times will be the clear winners. “I think a visible leader that can inspire continuous improvement, accountability, empathy, dignity and respect for all wins. A leader that engages all stakeholders to take ownership in the vision of the organization will be highly successful during today’s business climate.”
British Staffing Businesses
Within healthcare, there has been a big shift in the approach taken within healthcare staffing since the start of the pandemic,” said Jack Saxton, director at Tempting Talent. “A number of British staffing businesses, particularly GQR, have taken considerable market share away from long-standing names within this space. This is due to the increasing national mobility of locums and increasing specialization of the approach to staffing,” he said.
“Life sciences executive search teams including Korn Ferry and the boutiques have seen major upticks in inbound business as the life science industry looks to capitalize on a bullish outlook for VCs,” Mr. Saxton said. “We have also seen a lot of other executive search firms looking to diversify into the life sciences arena.”
The Value of Being Face-to-Face
“My firm recruits exclusively within the medical device industry,” said Brian Cole, managing partner at MedTech Executive Search. “When the pandemic started, hiring mostly came to a stop as companies went into self-preservation mode, especially those companies focused on elective surgeries. However, most hiring has resumed since that time. The companies that seem to have been hit the hardest were those just beginning to commercialize as they started ramping up infrastructure and were not able to produce revenues. Companies still in the development stage of their business were not as affected and actually might have had an advantage of more time to get their product developed and ready for market. We do see more executives on the sidelines now and it could be a significant amount of time before that subsides,” he said.
Mr. Cole said it has been a big disadvantage not being in front of professionals in person. “We attend 10-plus industry and investor conferences annually and we possess a significant advantage for our clients by having face-to-face relationships,” he said. “We are knowledge-brokers within our industry, and it is important for us to personally be in front of them to gather and share information. The information that we obtain while talking to an executive in person is substantially more than what we learn during a phone call, even if that call happened the same week. Professionals are just more comfortable sharing confidential information face-to-face, and this information brings tremendous value to our clients. I do not see any advantages to working virtually. Collaboration can be more difficult. Developing and nurturing a strong culture will also be tougher to do.”
“Executives who are thinking outside the box and setting their organizations up to become more proactive rather than reactive to a future crisis will be in high demand,” said Mr. Cole. “The successful executives must reimage short and long-term planning scenarios that can adjust. These leaders will need to be confident and comfortable with making rapid decisions while rallying their organization through uncertain times. These leaders must be able to embrace change management as well as make sure their team can adapt to change management, if, and when, necessary.”
Taking Off Like Wildfire
Life sciences especially has been a steady beacon for executive recruiters in what could have been a dismal year. “This is largely due to companies pursuing a COVID-19 vaccine,” said Greg Button, president of global healthcare services for Korn Ferry. “Not only from a development perspective, but production, manufacturing and distribution. This also includes supporting companies on the service side such as contract manufacturing and technology.”
On the healthcare side, Mr. Button says there was a decline initially due to hospitals navigating full ICUs and focusing all their attention on how to treat the virus, while trying to figure out how to manage as elective procedures initially shut down. “Elective procedures are the bloodline, the money maker for hospitals, and when they were shut down, hospitals halted new searches,” he said. “But now, new searches have taken off like wildfire. These last several months have been the busiest in provider searches that we have seen for some time. There was a backlog of elective procedures caused by the shutdown, and as the population ages, we will see a continued increase in the need for healthcare. Life sciences stayed continually busy and now healthcare is equally busy, if not more, busy.”
“On the provider side there’s been a meteoric rise in telemedicine,” said Mr. Button. “The patient population has become more comfortable speaking with a provider via phone or Zoom. Patient portals to manage care are more prevalent. The pandemic will have lasting impact from a care standpoint. The public has now come to a realization that there will be new strains impacting treatment protocols and vaccine requirements forever. There will be more access points for people to get vaccines and treatment, which clearly impacts organizations as they treat the virus.”
