Care of the Critically ill and Injured During Pandemics and Disasters: Health Information Technology Continuity in Disasters
Strategy 5: Once an impending medication or supply shortage is identified, health-care facilities should institute protocols to encourage the use of alternative products whenever possible and to restrict use of the product in shortage such that it is only used when there is no available alternative or when the use of alternatives is prohibited due to substantial differences in efficacy or toxicity. www.medicine-against-diabetes.net
Strategy 6: Health-care facilities and the healthcare industry should support ongoing efforts from policy makers and national and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations to reduce supply chain vulnerability in medical supplies and medications. Interventions currently considered include requirement of early reporting of anticipated shortages or manufacturing difficulties, expedited review of alternative manufacturing processes, providing incentives to manufacturers to produce critical medical products, requiring regulatory approval for manufacturing redundancies in sourcing and production, and improving communication between manufacturers and regulatory authorities.
We suggest hospitals have the mobile technology necessary to identify patients quickly and effectively, including in austere parts of the hospital (eg, parking lots).
We suggest hospitals have the ability to set up ad-hoc secure networks in austere sections of the hospital campuses for mobile technology.
We suggest hospitals have a strategy for supplying austere sites with electric power to charge the mobile devices, provide local network facilities, and provide essential services for an extended period of time.
We suggest hospitals be capable of transferring patient identification, identification of next of kin with contact information, and a defined minimal database of medical history with every patient. This minimal database of medical history should be able to be printed, or handwritten if necessary, in the absence of computer technology.