Our January 22 meeting, which was a Zoom call, focused on health system preparedness. During the Covid-19 pandemic, regional health systems have been severely challenged with managing their patient capacity and collaborating with other (often competing) regional health systems to overcome regional capacity challenges -- much to the detriment of Covid and non-Covid patients and the health providers caring for them. See for example the September 30, 2020 Wall Street Journal article "Why Hospitals Can’t Handle Covid Surges: They’re Flying Blind" https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-covid-surge-data-11601478409.
During the meeting we explored "Real-time Health System Disaster Preparedness and Availability" and the increased role that HIEs (Health Information Exchanges) such as CRISP (Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients) are playing in coordination with regional health systems. Our speakers were (1) Craig Behm, who is the Maryland Executive Director of CRISP; and (2) Brendan Furlong, MD, who is VP Medical Operations and Chief Medical Information Officer of MedStar Medical Group and Board Chair of CRISP, Washington, DC.
A recording of the meeting and materials can be found here:
https://youtu.be/yYa-pj2lUp0