Military Medical Provider Perspectives During the New York COVID-19 Response

The response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in New York City (NYC) included unprecedented support from the DoD-a response limited primarily to medical and public health response on domestic soil with intact infrastructure. This study seeks to identify the common perspectives, experiences, and challenges of DoD personnel participating in this historic response.

This is a phenomenological qualitative study of 16 military health care providers who deployed to NYC in March 2020. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the USU (No. DBS.2020.123). All participants served on either the United States Naval Ship Comfort or at the Javits Center. We conducted semi-structured interviews exploring the participants' experiences while deployed to NYC. These interview scripts were then independently coded by five research team members.

We identified four common themes and 12 subthemes from the participants' responses. The themes (subthemes) were lack of preparation (unfamiliar mission and inadequate resources); confusion about integration with civilian health care (widespread, dynamic situation, and NYC overwhelmed), communication challenges (overall, misunderstanding and miscommunication resulting in tension, and patient handoffs); and adaptation and success (general, military-civilian liaison service, positive experience, and military support necessity).

This study provides unique insight into the DoD's initial response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in NYC. Using this experiential feedback from the DoD's pandemic responders could aid planners in improving the rapidity, effectiveness, and safety of military and civilian health care system integrations that may arise in the future.