“There are three phases of any hurricane. There’s the pre-
storm preparation, there’s manning the hospitals during the
storm, and then there’s the post-storm recovery phase. Some
of these storms don’t just blow through and leave; some stay
for days. We had to be concerned that the physicians and
the providers that were willing to get in to man the
hospitals during the storm could get in. We also had to be
worried that, if this went on for days, how could we get
them out and how could we get others in to relieve them.
We had to worry about facilities flooding and becoming
non-functional, and what would we do in that event.”
In short, when it comes to emergency preparedness,
more is better. That’s the lesson many hospitals, along
with their administrators, physicians, and clinicians
learned when a pair of hurricanes bore down on Texas
and Florida within days of each other last August and
September. As they faced the wrath of Harvey and
Irma, providers remained calm, putting plans into
action and making sure patients and communities were
served before, during, and after impact. All those efforts combined to support on-the-ground
efforts in Houston which targeted more granular
details, such as advising teams to bring readiness bags
(including personal medications and electronics
chargers) so they were able to stay onsite for several
days if necessary. They also worked to ensure there
were enough staff members in-house before roads
became impassable, which required asking physicians to
come in prior to landfall and to shelter in place.
“I and most of my leadership team have experience
delivering care during hurricanes and tropical storms,
and so were able to do some anticipatory managing,”
says Dr. Mary Haven Merkle, senior vice president of
integrated services for TeamHealth West, of
preparations for Hurricane Harvey. Dr. Merkle is
responsible for all physicians and advanced practice
clinicians at Memorial Hermann facilities. That kind of all-encompassing advance legwork was
also done in Florida, says Dr. Steve Schwartz, group
president for TeamHealth Southeast.
Centralized location for efforts crucial
At the same time, TeamHealth’s national operations
team was undergoing its own pre-storm efforts in
Houston and Florida, which included establishing a
command center. That operation would run for several
days before and after the storms (see related feature),
and was tied into other activities such as a hotline and
twice-daily communications with all group leaders.
“There are three phases of any hurricane,” Dr.
Schwartz says. “There’s the pre-storm preparation,
there’s manning the hospitals during the storm, and
then there’s the post-storm recovery phase. Some of
these storms don’t just blow through and leave; some
stay for days. We had to be concerned that the
physicians and the providers that were willing to get in
to man the hospitals during the storm could get in. We
also had to be worried that, if this went on for days,
how could we get them out and how could we get
others in to relieve them. We had to worry about
facilities flooding and becoming non-functional, and
what would we do in that event.”
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