Learning From the Pandemic: How Hospitals are Planning for the Future

Throughout the pandemic, front-line caregivers have gone above and beyond to provide high-quality care in the face of many unique challenges. With cases once again spiking across most of the country, an increased focus has reemerged on the processes that ensure those caregivers have ready access to the vital medical equipment needed to treat growing numbers of high-acuity patients.

Recently, Agiliti President Tom Boehning was part of a panel discussion with Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) that focused on medical inventory management.  Tom joined a group of seasoned healthcare executives to discuss how the pandemic impacted their approaches to equipment and supply acquisition, as well as how they are planning to address the challenges expected in the months ahead.

At the onset of the pandemic, many hospitals tried to meet higher patient demand by acquiring as much equipment as possible. Now, the rising challenge is how to effectively manage, utilize, service and store that additional equipment to make sure it is readily available for emergent events – without incurring unnecessary costs. As Tom said in the roundtable:

“We think moving forward that health systems are going to need to find ways to plan for – and even predict demand – so that they can quickly scale their operations to support spikes in patient volumes. While we’re learning more every day and identifying places we can make key improvements, doing nothing isn’t an option. Without the right infrastructure or processes in place, we know health systems and hospitals are going to be challenged to manage higher inventory levels and ensure vital medical equipment is readily available to frontline caregivers.”

You can read the article on HFMA’s website now.

Some other learnings you’ll find in this roundtable include:

• The top lessons learned from the first wave of COVID-19
• Insights from healthcare executives regarding financial, clinical and operational challenges during the pandemic
• How other healthcare organizations are planning for 2021 and beyond

Better Equipped for What Comes Next   

The COVID-19 pandemic was a shock that prompted many in healthcare to take a hard look at long-existing gaps in our nationwide procurement and supply chain processes. And with ongoing waves of COVID-19 continuing to hit the country regionally, it’s clear new processes and procedures are needed to ensure vital equipment remains available for caregivers.

Recently, Agiliti sat down with a group of healthcare executives to dive deeper into the equipment management strategies that worked and those that didn’t in the fight against COVID-19.

This webinar is now available to watch on-demand. In it, you’ll hear even more about:

• Financial and operational takeaways from the early stages of COVID-19
• Managing the ongoing surges in COVID-19 and what changes are planned for medical equipment access and management
• Future-focused strategies for large-scale emergency preparedness

You can watch the replay of the webinar here.