9 Ways Health IT Can Help During a Disaster

“When preparing for a disaster, hospital patients are at the mercy of clinicians, care teams and hospital staff. When evacuating and transferring patients from one facility to another, health IT can provide the teams on both ends with vital and accurate information to ensure timely communications and continuity of care. This approach brings stability to an otherwise fearful, chaotic situation.”

-Doug Cusick, president and CEO, TransformativeMed

“When disasters occur, those who are most vulnerable are often the most threatened. Health is of the byproduct of safe living conditions, reliable sources of food water and medical services, and of course financial stability. In disasters, all of these are threatened. In order to keep people safe and healthy, our communities need to connect people to services, and increasingly these connections are facilitated by health IT. The importance of information-sharing is emphasized by the tradition that the federal government has recently adopted, wherein certain components of HIPAA are waived during disasters-ensuring that everyone is focused on maximally sharing information to understand and address the needs of people in these communities.”

-Jacob Reider, MD, CEO, Alliance for Better Health

“The need to get the right patient to the right care without delay is even more important during a disaster. Hospitals and clinicians can leverage health IT for anything from telemedicine, to locating available in-person medical care, to getting a patient transferred to another hospital if their facility is being evacuated within the same health system, or from an outside hospital.“

-Darin Vercillo, MD, chief medical officer, Central Logic

"After a calamity, cellular communication is usually one of the first services to be restored. This makes it possible for patients to get care even when physicians are stretched thin. Providers can leverage smartphone apps to provide virtual consults to people who have medical needs that don't require an in-office visit."

-Clinton Philips, founder and CEO, Medici

“Health IT and interoperability between health systems play a critical role in providing timely access to patients’ health information to deliver appropriate care. This need is magnified during a hurricane evacuation or other disaster, when patients may be transferred from a coastal hospital to an inland one, or when they might see a provider who is not part of their usual care team or outside their health system network. A cloud-based solution that is embedded directly in EHR workflows to help create and deliver actionable medication information can improve adherence and ensure that emergency care providers understand drug therapy needs during stressful periods such as disasters.”

-Charles Lee, MD, senior director, Clinical Knowledge – Meducation, FDB

“Telemedicine is extremely helpful during a disaster. Here are two real-world examples: During Hurricane Maria, U.S. Army mobile medics from Brooke Army Medical Center and Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center set up camp in Humacao, Puerto Rico, to provide on-demand, synchronous critical care and specialty virtual health encounters to more than 150 patients a day. During Hurricane Harvey in Houston, the Veterans Administration repositioned their telemedicine systems to provide relief to disaster victims.”

-Joel E. Barthelemy, founder and CEO, GlobalMed

“Routing patients to the right care at the right time in the wake of a disaster is essential, whether it’s helping to coordinate the care of displaced patients during an evacuation or routing patients to community-based services in the time of need. Health IT can connect and align physicians, care teams and supporting services.  Technology empowers all stakeholders with the urgent information they need to deliver care in a simple, streamlined manner to maximize efficiency by removing layers of administrative burden.”

-Julie Mann, chief commercial officer, Holon Solutions

“During natural disasters, effective communication and collaboration are critical in mobilizing command centers, managing evacuation plans, and safely caring for and moving patients. Too often cellular service is unreliable or unavailable in such emergencies. As a result, many hospital leaders and care team members rely on their Wi-Fi networks and hands-free devices to communicate with each other and coordinate activities with the command center during disasters and emergencies.”

-Brent D. Lang, chairman and CEO, Vocera

“As we’ve seen in recent years, the demand for acute and emergency care surges during a major disaster. Often times, normal communication channels are not available and care team members are forced to rely on unsecure options such as texting to address patients’ critical care needs. Instead of waiting for the next big disaster to hit, healthcare organizations should proactively prepare themselves by adopting secure communication tools that connect providers, pharmacists, and patients-without putting confidential patient health information at risk.”

-G. Cameron Deemer, president, DrFirst