DON’T PANIC. PREPARE.

DON’T PANIC. PREPARE.

Planning for Pandemics: Methods and Models Among Masks, Madness, and Myths

The Innova Group has successfully helped large, integrated health systems and individual hospitals with pandemic planning and would like to make our insights and methodology publicly available to any organization that may find it beneficial to their planning and preparation.

With the exponentiating case counts and rapidly evolving, mixed reporting on key statistics, it takes little effort to sensationalize the public health, sociopolitical, and economic impacts of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

An epidemic simulation model developed by Johns Hopkins and other entities[i] estimates several US cities have increased relative risk of imported cases, suggesting community organizations and notably, hospitals and health systems, in these regions take special interest in pandemic preparedness and infection control. Accordingly, the CDC and other public health entities have declared emergencies and issued recent guidance[ii] encouraging communities in the US to strategically prepare for COVID-19.

Map of highest risk U.S. cities based on likelihood of 2019-nCoV arriving travelers.

Source: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University

 

Map of the airports at highest risk of 2019-nCoV arriving travelers outside mainland China.

Source: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University

Pandemic Triage and Treatment

Assuring coordination, and access to critical resources and staff.

Looking to improve realism and consistency in pandemic response plans, The Innova Group developed a philosophy and model for pandemic triage and treatment.

The Philosophy

There are many unknowns faced during a pandemic; each epidemic is unique and has varying degrees of severity, duration, and area of impact. Caring for stricken individuals and maintaining essential operations requires a clear and coordinated plan.

The Pandemic Triage and Treatment philosophy, developed by Innova, addresses the many challenges faced in pandemic planning and readiness. This process addresses the unique characteristics of a pandemic that require a response different than the typical emergency:

  • Prevent the surge from overwhelming the Emergency Department and the hospital
  • Effectively deal with the large number of “worried well” who are anticipated to seek care
  • Isolate the pandemic cases from all other cases
  • Promote actions for the hospital or clinic in order to sustain operations for the duration of the wave

A cornerstone of the Innova Pandemic Triage and Treatment Philosophy is the intentional reduction of people who arrive at a hospital or facility; limiting access to only those pandemic infectious disease patients who require hospitalization. With detailed flow charts for 15 specific functions, the process calls for most functions to be performed off the hospital campus – maximizing drive through concepts and utilizing facilities in the community.

The Model

To assure that critical resources are available to support the triage and treatment process and to sustain hospital operations throughout the crisis, Innova developed the Pandemic Model that delivers data for each major service (e.g., population triage, consult and education, mass vaccination) – assessing critical resources based on the estimated duration of the pandemic waves. The Pandemic Model provides an estimate of staff, personal protection equipment, medical supplies, medical equipment, and key characteristics/space needed to properly prepare for and respond to a pandemic.

It calculates requirements based on projected workload from a supported population. Because the workload in the model is a function of beneficiary population, attack rates, and severity index, it can be used in estimates for any population size. Each hospital can use it for its beneficiary population, as well as, run the estimates for the greater community.

To learn more about the Pandemic Triage and Treatment Standard Operating Procedure and the Pandemic Model please reach out and let us know how we can help.

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By Damiana Andonova, Elizabeth Brinkley, and Peter Trice | March 2020

[i] Gardner, L. (2020). Update January 31: Modeling the Spreading Risk of 2019-nCoV. Modeling 2019-NCoV. https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov-model-2/ 
[ii] CDC. (2020). Interim Guidance: Public Health Communicators Get Your Community Ready for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/public-health-communicators-get-your-community-ready.html