The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of hospitals to evaluate and care for an increased volume of patients exceeding normal operating capacity which is now known as medical surge.
The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019 includes a provision for GAO to review implementation for HHS’s regional preparedness and response guidelines for hospitals and other facilities to increase medical surge capacity.
HHS’ program and activities to support medical surge readiness for hospitals and other healthcare organizations are underway but it is too soon to know the effectiveness of these efforts. For example:
- HHS has implemented a new medical surge exercise for coalitions in 2021 to test readiness and have plans to establish targets to measure performance
- HHS is also considering how to use the findings and lessons learned from their 2021 assessment of coalitions during the pandemic to improve their support for coalitions and their communities
- HHS is funding the development of a regional disaster health response system which aims to develop effective approaches to medical surge response across multiple states
- Regional disaster health response systems are planning to include improving data sharing on resource and capacity issues and then develop specialized teams that will be able to respond to a range of hazards
- HHS is considering their next steps regarding the expansion of the regional system and is developing regional guidelines for hospitals and other facilities related to treating patients and increasing medical surge capacity during public health emergencies
To explain HHS efforts to deal with the situation, GAO has published the report Public Health Preparedness:COVID-19 Medical Surge Experiences and Related HHS Efforts. Specifically, the eight hospitals reviewed by GAO reported multiple challenges related to staff, supplies, space, or information.
All eight hospitals reported staffing challenges such as lack of staff to care for the increase in sick patients or staff becoming ill and therefore unable to work which affects hospital services. Hospitals addressed these challenges such as supplementing staffing where possible and/or training the staff on proper personal protective equipment to use to prevent infection.
GAO has provided a draft of this report to HHS for review and comment. Go to https://www./gao.gov/reports-testimonies?%f%5BO%5D=topic%3AHealth%20Care for more information on the report.