HJNO Nov/Dec 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  NOV / DEC 2021 11 limitations without the proper infrastruc- ture, and the hospital’s water supply was impacted and not available. Due to the storm, patients have had limited access to primary care/preventative care services. As a result, many chronic care management plans have been delayed, such as infusion center services. Was your health system’s response any different before or after this storm than in the past? Hart We’ve been here before and have learned many lessons, especially since Hur- ricane Katrina. I don’t know that for Katrina, anyone at our facilities expected to be onsite for a week or more. For Ida, we prepared for several days and had backup plans in place to ensure we had power, water, PPE and supplies. We brought in our TeamA to stay at our facilities during the storm. We have redundancy in our generator power, we have water wells at many of our facili- ties in case we lose city water. We’ve got- ten a lot better at our logistics of station- ing fuel trucks in different areas, so we can keep a continuous supply of fuel for those generators. There’s a lot more sophistication behind it than there once was. There’s just a lot more infrastructure in place for that now than there used to be. Elder The recovery phase was extended post Ida due to the power and water out- ages. There was a buildup to the return of full services over the course of two weeks after the storm. Torcson We are truly a well-oiled machine where hurricane preparedness and emer- gency operations are concerned, so in that regard our preparation and execution on emergency operations for Ida were just like all the other storms. But of course, COVID- 19 added an element that we have never had to address. For our colleagues, in the past, we would invite our activation team to bring their family, and we had to recognize that invit- ing that many people into multiday, indoor, prolonged, close proximity with each other was counter to our infection prevention and visitation rules for the pandemic. For our patients, a significant difference with Ida was having a full hospital census before, during and after the storm. The abil- ity to safely discharge patients and maxi- mize throughput required a concentration of resources to care for inpatients. For our community, a major difference between Ida and past storms was our open- ness and availability as a community gath- ering space in the days after. Similar to our decision not to invite colleagues’families to ride out the stormwith us, we also couldn’t open up and say to our community, “Come and use our facilities as your community center for supply distribution, information sharing and access to hot meals.” Lorio In preparation for the storm, our emergency preparedness plan was activated as per standard protocol. After the storm, our hospital had to be evacuated due to life safety standard issues caused by the storm. How did loss of basic resources like electricity, water, communications affect your operations and staff? Hart Following an event like this, power res- toration could take weeks or months, and we couldn’t afford to put off healthcare, especially after appointments and proce- dures were delayed from the COVID surge. We were lucky in that we had generator power, backup fuel sources, well water and plenty of supplies to move across the sys- tem where needed. But, some of our staff needed basic neces- sities and supplies, so we set up an OchMart for employees. Gas was very difficult to get, so we set up distribution sites and gave away more than 250,000 gallons to employ- ees in the weeks following the storm. Communications, especially in the Bayou area, were heavily impacted and really changed the way we did things. We’ve got- ten so much more reliant on all of our tech- nology and the internet, but as all that stuff has gotten so much better, it’s also exposed a vulnerability. Technology has been an incredible tool for healthcare but when cell towers, internet and power go out, you have to rely on old school techniques — we printed one pagers, COVID protocols and other items and delivered them to areas that didn’t have connectivity. We also set up dig- ital medicine hubs with iPads at Ochsner locations, like our community health center in New Orleans East. Elder All LCMC hospitals were on genera- tor power during and after Ida. Some facili- ties lost municipal water and required the use of backup water systems. However, our hospitals were able to continue with clini- cal operations before, during and after Ida. Most of our staff were without electric- ity in their homes for an extended period of time. Additionally, some staff had significant damage to their homes. This required man- agers to be flexible with their staff to con- tinue operations while allowing our people time to care for their families and homes. Torcson Thankfully, St. Tammany Health System, since the concerns about Y2K in the late 1990s, has been uniquely self-sufficient in emergency situations. We are equipped to power our main campus for up to a week when municipal power is disrupted. We have our own on-campus water well that provides backup water supply if city water is disrupted or unsafe. We have backup phone and internet communication sys- tems arranged for times when our routine channels are disrupted. Unique challenges still impacted us in Ida because even our backup communica- tion systems were interrupted, and gasoline shortages presented staffing challenges as the activation team and relief team needed to change shifts after the event. Lorio Loss of basic resources caused a