100 Leading Healthcare Organizations Release Disaster Readiness Recommendations

Even prior to the public health and natural disasters of 2020, experts from across the healthcare spectrum were already looking into policy and regulatory recommendations to improve the country's ability to prepare for and respond to crises. In February, the Healthcare Leadership Council and Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy released those recommendations in a report focused on ways to maximize resources and strengthen disaster preparedness infrastructure going forward.

The COVID Impact

Neil de Crescenzo

Neil de Crescenzo, president and CEO of Change Healthcare, served as executive committee chair of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) during much of the work on this project. "We actually started this process before COVID, but it took on a whole new importance once the coronavirus was identified," he said. The members of HLC, a coalition of chief executives across all subsectors of the American healthcare industry, were already aware of policy and communication gaps prior to the pandemic. However, COVID-19 response deeply underscored barriers and a lack of coordination hampering a rapid, adequate response to emerging threats.

Calvin Schmidt, senior vice president and worldwide leader for Government Affairs & Policy with Johnson & Johnson, noted every sector of healthcare stepped up to meet the occasion of the pandemic. "But the goal is to put infrastructure in place so we aren't reliant on heroes but are instead prepared." He added, "We need to know an overwhelmed hospital can get their hands on what they need without delay."

Schmidt, who chairs the HLC task force on patient safety and quality, added one section of the report recommendations addresses capacity, modernizing the supply chain and ensuring more resilient stockpiles. "We should never again have a situation where states and healthcare providers are feverishly competing against each other (for supplies)," he stressed.

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, founding director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, concurred, noting, "The COVID-19 pandemic and immediate response has exposed vulnerabilities in the nation's ability to handle a national-scale crisis." He added, "Fragile supply chains that rely on single sources outside the country were tough. I think there's broad agreement that we need more robust supply chains that include domestic sourcing, as well as multiple sourcing."

He said the new report is intended to be highly actionable based on shortfalls identified in dealing with the pandemic. "We want to learn from what didn't work and build on what did," McClellan stated.

Turning Lessons Learned into Action

"Public emergencies will continue to happen and may become more frequent and severe," said HLC president Mary R. Grealy. "The next pandemic, natural disaster, or global crisis can be handled more effectively with better preparedness. That begins with the government at all levels and the private sector taking action now, while lessons from COVID-19 are still being learned."

The recommendations call for some of the temporary steps taken to address the pandemic becoming permanent going forward, particularly in terms of making it easier to create public-private partnerships, streamlining regulations to allow providers to practice where they are most needed without some of the more unwieldy state licensure issues, and enhancing communications and data sharing. McClellan noted the recommendations are a combination of actions that could be ramped up quickly and those that are more aspirational and factor into long-term plans.

Experts agree the pandemic exponentially enhanced telehealth adoption for patients and providers. Andrea Willis, MD, senior vice president and chief medical officer for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, said, "Looking at how we did telehealth expansion, we saw a lot of single providers jump into the fray to make sure patients could get the care they needed. We're grateful to them. They are heroes in this, and it helped us broaden our thinking on what we can do to support them."

Another area of focus coming out of the pandemic is a heightened sense of urgency to address health inequities. While many clinicians and some in the general population were already aware of disparities in care, the pandemic shone a bright spotlight on the issue. "The exacerbations were right there in our faces," pointed out Willis, adding social determinants must factor into preparing for future disaster responses.

Grealy said the pandemic laid bare the need to improve both our public health and data infrastructure. "I think there's a real opportunity in the short term to move quickly on this," she noted.

While the gaps are glaring, an appetite to change the status quo seems to be a growing in both the public and private sector. McClellan, who previously served as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has been heartened by the information sharing and cooperation seen during the pandemic. "A positive sign was the organizations and people in the healthcare space who typically are competitors showing willingness to work together for the good of all Americans."

Grealy agreed, "There is a commitment on the part of the private sector to work with the government. We need to begin preparing now for what my come in the future."

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Healthcare Leadership Council

Disaster Preparedness Framework & Recommendations

Disaster Preparedness and Response Compendium of Best Practices from the Healthcare Industry