Senior leaders and care teams quickly developed a detailed response plan in preparation for a potential surge of coronavirus contagion and mortality.

Hospital providers tailored their plans to meet the needs of the communities they serve, starting with preparing for daily high-volume consumer testing and an influx of patients to the ED who had coronavirus symptoms.

Here are some examples of provider response to COVID-19:

• Created a Task Force of senior leaders, physicians, and staff with a command center
• Communicated regularly with front line caregivers and staff
• Had some administrative staff work from home to reduce exposure
• Paused most elective surgeries and in-person patient visits
• Partnered with area manufacturers to obtain PPE
• Took additional steps to protect the patient care team
• Created safe staging areas to test consumers for the coronavirus
• Used telehealth for some staff-patient interactions to enhance staff safety
• Created virtual patient-family visits via telehealth
• Set-up a protocol to communicate with families about their loved ones
• Converted some patient rooms to negative pressure
• Used anesthesia machines as ventilators
• Converted BiPap machines to ventilators
• Physicians shared new treatment insights with physicians in other hospitals

The industry response was well thought out, targeted, and executed quickly. It demonstrated a nimble capability when much was still unknown about COVID-19.

The newly gained experiential knowledge will provide ongoing benefit and value as the industry confronts new challenges.

Jonathan