Publications
Publications
- May 2, 2024
- Health Affairs Forefront
Require Hospitals to Disclose Their Pandemic Plans Now
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Richard J. Boxer and Ben Creo
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that U.S. hospital and health care systems were ill-prepared for the surge of patients who overwhelmed available health care resources. An overlooked resource deserves more attention: the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) hospital beds. Hundreds of thousands may have died needlessly because of a lack of knowledge by overcapacity hospitals about nearby available ICU beds. Our proposed solution—that hospitals be required to disclose their pandemic plan for sharing information about their ICU occupancy to the SEC or similar agency—coordinates with efforts to increase bottom-up transparency and underscores the importance of local knowledge and control.
Keywords
COVID-19 Pandemic; Crisis Management; Knowledge Sharing; Governance Compliance; Planning; Health Industry; United States
Citation
Herzlinger, Regina E., Richard J. Boxer, and Ben Creo. "Require Hospitals to Disclose Their Pandemic Plans Now." Health Affairs Forefront (May 2, 2024).