Thank You, Florida Hospitals and Health Care Heroes
11/1/2024
This article first appeared as a column in the 2024 November issue of South Florida Hospital News
By Mary Mayhew, FHA President and CEO
Less than six weeks after Hurricanes Milton and Helene tore through Florida, almost all hospitals in every community in the state are open and operational.
This resiliency doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because of commitment; planning and preparedness; and collaboration and coordination.
Florida’s hospitals take their role as a 24/7, 365-days-a-year health care provider extremely seriously. Hospitals are infrastructure. They are just as essential as the electric grid and transportation and communications systems. Before, during, and after a significant weather event, hospitals are responsible for managing the continuous care of acutely ill patients already in their care, such as patients on ventilators, as well as being accessible during the storm for women in labor and those experiencing medical emergencies or injuries. They become literally ports in the storm for people needing dialysis; food, water, and shelter; and emergency medical care. The commitment is to maintain care and operations throughout the entire storm event without sacrificing the safety of patients and staff.
To fulfill this critical and unique role, hospitals invest millions of dollars in hardening their physical plants and buildings to resist wind and rain damage. They deploy flood barriers to guard against storm surge flooding. They retrofit building exteriors, including placing hurricane-resistant windows, to withstand hurricane-force winds and projectile objects. They build on-site wells and elevate parking lots. They invest in supplies, such as linens and potable water, medications, and equipment, including generators and satellite phones.
The guiding principle is safe, continuous patient care and access.
Importantly, this commitment is not solely financial or operational. It is also personal. To be functional, hospitals have to be staffed, and when other businesses are closing, entire communities are evacuating, and people are hunkering down in advance of storm landfall, hospital personnel – both clinical and operational — come to work. These individuals often leave their homes and families to shelter in place at the hospital, sometimes for days, to ensure that care continues safely and without interruption. These individuals are truly selfless, putting the needs of their patients and communities ahead of their own, and we owe them a debt of appreciation.
Second, hospitals plan, prepare, and practice. They have robust emergency preparedness and response plans that county emergency management officials review annually for comprehensiveness and accuracy, and they conduct at least two exercises a year to test, drill, and practice the plans to identify any areas of needed improvement and to ensure their teams understand how to operationalize the plan in an actual emergency.
When Hurricane Milton was churning in the Gulf, with landfall imminent, about 20 hospitals made the difficult decision to evacuate patients based on information about the storm’s likely path and assessment of flood risk. These evacuations followed protocols outlined in emergency response plans.
In the aftermath of Helene and Milton, hospitals again will do a 360-degree assessment of how well their emergency response plans worked in the real world of two back-to-back hurricanes and make necessary adjustments so that next time, they will be even more prepared. Each time they are tested, hospitals come back even stronger and more prepared.
Lastly, resiliency results from collaboration and coordination. With each storm, the entire hospital community comes together to share information and resources and works hand-in-hand with state and local officials to coordinate patient transfers, get generators and other equipment to facilities that need them, and accelerate approval of regulatory waiver requests and needed flexibilities with health insurance plans. With daily phone calls with partners from the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Florida’s State Meteorologists, the Agency for Health Care Administration, and the Florida Department of Health, hospitals quickly and strategically identify and address current and anticipated impacts on hospitals and health systems across the state. Only through partnership and collaboration can storms like these be weathered.
This hurricane season has been intense and unprecedented. The unwavering constant, however, is the commitment and resilience of Florida hospitals and their workforce to caring for our communities before, during, and after each storm. We thank you.