Lott on Healthcare
James Lott is Executive Vice President of the Hospital Association of Southern California
Urgent Rehab Needed For Bioterrorism and Disaster Preparedness in California (Mar 17, 2008, 12:46 PM PDT)
Summary: Few regions in the United States have the appropriate hospital surge capacity to cope with a major disaster, according to a recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Funding on the national level has been relatively low: "The federal government spends less than $5 per person annually to pay for health systems and agencies to be prepared for a disaster. More money is now spent to stockpile drugs and supplies than to hire and train health providers to treat disaster victims," the report states.
The study notes that California received far more federal disaster preparedness funding than any other state - $143.2 million in 2007. Yet that works out to $3.93 per capita, significantly below the nationwide average of $4.30. By contrast, rural - and far less populated - states such as North Dakota, Alaska and Wyoming received $11.24, $10.73 and $13.40 per capita, respectively.
Comments:
Insightful, but what are hospital's to do? There is very little specialized training that is targeted towards disaster preparedness. Education provided is focusing on overall logistics of disaster situation, but offers very little solutions and "tips" for everyday operators. regulatory agencies are inspecting, writing up, wave their finger at hospitals, but when it comes to actual assistance -- they do NOTHING!
Natalia Lopatina
03/18/08 8:55 AM
I couldn't agree with the author more. This scale of business continuity planning and disaster preparedness requires an enormous effort today in preventing the log-jam you refer to tomorrow. That log-jam has at least 3 critical dimensions: Medical (current patients and new patients as result of the disaster), operational (answering the who, what, where, when and how questions), and the technological/informational dimension. We cannot afford not to learn from Katrina. The logistics involved in dealing with each of those 3 dimensions demand sophisticated business process analysis and management today as well as modern and effective health information exchange and back-up capabilities. Reloacating and serving people without adequate medical information and health records is a set-up for crisis and chaos. This as true for urban hospitals, rural hospitals, critical access hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and SNFs. Hospitals need much more than education. They need dedicated personnel with the expertise to manage disaster processes and health information throughout the enterprise and beyond organizational boundaries. Until we see health information and processes as being somewhat fluid in their boundaries (such as a RHIO), we cannot adequately respond to disaster. We must all get past the mind-set established by HIPAA that has us believing we can't share health information so we won't invest in the capability. That will require political will and investment. Engage the public (the majority of which believe their health information can and will be shared...so sadly misinformed) and leverage their pressure upon legislators to mandate change. Anyone who lived through Katrina will tell you that this is non-negotiable.
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Did You Know?
Front-line healthcare workers in California would be quickly overwhelmed in a disaster or terrorism event producing mass casualties. Reimagining the way our initial response system and capabilities are configured is urgently needed.
