Access to healthcare during COVID-19

Abstract

Ensuring access to healthcare is critical to prevent illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases in health systems that have deteriorated during the pandemic. This study aims to map the existing literature on healthcare access after the appearance of COVID-19 using an ontological framework. This will help us to formalize, standardize, visualize and assess the barriers to and drivers of access to healthcare, and how to continue working towards a more accessible health system. A total of 131 articles are included and considered for mapping in the framework. The results were also compared to the World Health Organization guidelines on maintaining essential health services to determine the overlapping and nonoverlapping areas. We showed the benefits of using ontology to promote a systematic approach to address healthcare problems of access during COVID-19 or other pandemics and set public policies. This systematic approach will provide feedback to study the existing guidelines to make them more effective, learn about the existing gaps in research, and the relationship between the two of them. These results set the foundation for the discussion of future public health policies and research in relevant areas where we might pay attention.