HJNO Sep/Oct 2020

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  SEP / OCT 2020 17 representatives from every hospital in our system, as well as LCMC Health leadership. This allowed us to share updates on status of hospital census, and various other issues as it related delivering care to our entire patient population, not just those with COVID-19. This proved, once again, that communica- tion and collaboration are vital to manag- ing through the height of the pandemic in our region. Another step we took was identifying key spokespeople to respond to media inquiries to keep the public informed about the state of our hospitals, and healthcare in general. Dr. Brandon Mauldin In late January, as it became more likely that we would see COVID-19 activity in the United States, we started to prepare for a possible pandemic with table top exercises, and a review of our policies. We are a partnership between HCA Healthcare and Tulane University, and both of those organizations were able to pool exper- tise and resources to help us quickly prepare for what we feared was coming. The early days were intense. As quickly as we were outfitting new COVID units, new patients were being admitted. We were able to just stay ahead of the surge. We were very fortunate that Dr. Robert Lynch had recently re-joined us as our CEO. Dr. Lynch first served as Tulane Health Sys- tem’s CEO immediately following Katrina, and he was instrumental in managing through that crisis and reopening. His past experience and past collaborations through- out the region have been invaluable. Who initiated the first cross-system call at your level, and what was the topic? Hart  I believeMike Hulefeld, our chief oper- ating officer, helped initiate the first call. Dis- cussion focused on capacity, and how we could work together tomanage the surge. We were all facing similar challenges, so it made perfect sense to come together and see how we could support one another through this situation. Across our hospitals and regions, Ochsner has regular calls to escalate con- cerns, and allocate resources to areas most in need. Extending this collaboration to other area hospitals really helped support health- care workers and patients during the most critical time. We also developed modeling to predict cases and hospitalizations, and help us pre- pare for those scenarios. This data helped us identify potential issues and shortages related to ICU space, medications, supplies, and staffing. Heaton & Masterton The Ochsner CEO and LCMC System CEO agreed, and then we pulled in EJGH and Tulane. The CEOs had the key members of their teams on the calls.