2: Remarks on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Clinical Leadership's Pivotal Role

Everyone was worried about the magnitude, severity and speed at which COVID-19 spread globally and brought healthcare systems to collapse. The pandemic struck not merely the healthcare infrastructure of developing and poor economies, where healthcare systems were already strained, but burdened also the advanced countries, revealing serious shortcomings in healthcare sectors and sounding calls for action. Furthermore, the pandemic accelerated several recent transitions towards the ‘new normality’, as termed by Lega and Sartirana (2015), in which medical leadership appears the best policy to deal with them. These alterations concern the transformation of clinical necessities consequent to the integration of services for the treatment of comorbidity. Also, austerity and cost-containment place pressure on policymakers to reform expenditures and finances to better control healthcare budgets. Finally, the demand for accountability and patients' expectations for quality prompt a redesign of hospital organisation.