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Abstract Background The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized efforts to understand the influence of COVID-19 on VA clinicians and the overall VA system of care. Given the importance of health professions trainee (HPT) contributions to clinical and research activities, it is important to understand HPT contributions to VA’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This study evaluated the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on VA HPTs and the contributions of HPTs to VA’s pandemic response. Design Across selected VA sites, semi-structured interviews were used to gather perspectives from three participant groups: (1) HPTs across three disciplines at different levels of training, (2) service chiefs representing the disciplines in which the HPTs received training, and (3) educational leadership. Interviews were conducted in 2021. Participants Stratified sampling was used to identify 10 VA medical sites, from which 83 participants were purposefully sampled. Approach Descriptive content analysis was used to iteratively analyze collected data. Key Results HPTs reported decreased learning opportunities and increased safety concerns related to COVID-19 during their training placements. HPTs were seen as providing important contributions to multiple aspects of VA’s efforts to respond to challenges related to COVID-19, including providing needed clinical care, supporting VA’s shift to telehealth, providing informational and emotional support to Veterans, helping with COVID planning and decision-making, and fostering a positive work environment. Conclusions Although COVID-19 presented limitations to HPT involvement in VA activities, HPTs made meaningful contributions to care delivery and brought skills to support VA’s transition to virtual care delivery. HPTs are an important group to be included in future emergency response planning within VA. NIH Trial Registry Number Not applicable.
Kawentel et al. (Wed,) studied this question.