Care of the Critically ill and Injured During Pandemics and Disasters: Strategies
Strategy 2: Pre-event planning should be tailored at individual health-care facilities to identify commonly used critical care products and alternatives for which providers at the facility already have some degree of familiarity. To limit adverse events, it is preferable to use alternative products already in use and familiar to health-care workers rather than similar product alternatives with which they may have little experience. As such, determining alternative agents in pre-event planning requires multidisciplinary provider engagement. starlix medication
Strategy 3: Use of computer systems that integrate purchasing, storage, and use of medical supplies through technologies such as radio-frequency identification or other bar code system will allow a health-care facility to assess its real-time inventory and use of medications and medical supplies. The ability to track medication and supply levels in real time will alert a facility to predictable patterns of increased use (eg, increased use of masks during influenza season) and provide information on how much inventory is on hand at any given time.
Strategy 4: Once a facility’s medical product and storage levels are elucidated, anticipated critical product need during potential mass critical care events may be estimated to ensure that sufficient inventories are maintained and readily available. Given financial imperatives to maintain just-in-time inventories, essential supplies and medications should be prioritized for increased routine inven-tories. Increased purchasing should be incremental rather than bulk, both to minimize expense and avoid sudden demand on an already vulnerable supply chain. Stockpiling by individual institutions should be avoided during shortages, as it creates strain at a regional level, and hospitals and health systems will be well served by addressing stockpiling at the health-care coalition/regional health authority level (see “System Level Planning, Coordination, and Communication” article by Dichter et al in this consensus statement). For products known to be in short supply, hospitals and health systems should consider assigning priority (eg, normal, low, critically low) based on their actual and projected level of availability.