For this Discussion Board, please complete the following:

The healthcare world and the world overall is now a very different place since the COVID-19 global pandemic uprooted people’s daily lives. Healthcare policy had to change on a dime in many places. For example, hospitals fearing the worst limited the visitation of family members to those loved ones struck with illness (both COVID and non-COVID). New parents had to take turns seeing their newborns. Telehealth has taken on a new leading role in many healthcare organizations because face-to-face visits were no longer acceptable due to nationwide lockdowns. Many organizations did this to mitigate risk and follow strategic national policy. Your organization has decided to take a stand to implement the same strategy. Its policy is to not allow any visitors during a lockdown.

In this class debate, you are going to be placed on a side of the new visitation policy. Your task is to argue for or against the new policy based on your last name. Those with last names beginning in A–M will argue against, and those with last names beginning in N–Z will argue for. You are tasked with presenting your case to the class on why or why not the policy should stand. Cover the following:

• Consider how this has changed the way that you view healthcare access and equality.
• Consider the risk to the organization.
• Consider the impact of the decision.
• Should there be exceptions to the policy? Why or why not?
• Use data and evidence from literature to support your argument.

Remember that in healthcare administration, you are often tasked with supporting unpopular policy; it is not your job to change this policy; rather, your job is to defend the side that you are on respectfully.