How Pandemic Lessons Shape Your Future Success

Hospital teams move away from the ‘Old Normal’ during COVID-19

February 15, 2022

It worked before…but would we do it again?

As we see this rapidly changing landscape with COVID-19 case numbers declining, the normal reaction is that we will soon return to our pre-COVID baseline. For some organizations, that means going back to business as usual, and those monthly meetings featuring top-down summaries and the same familiar notes. Those pre-COVID routines may have met all the requirements when the inspector came onsite and reviewed our meeting minutes, but we have learned too much from the pandemic to go back to our old normal. Reverting back to our old ways means missing some valuable new opportunities.

Here are three examples:

1. Better collaboration

We have seen over the course of this pandemic that we can band together and bring in more than just the “top-level” assembly of minds to work through problems. How many of us have seen a process-flow that was dramatically improved by frontline staff providing details that were not there before? I think about concepts such as vaccine clinics and drive-through testing sites where we were given a conceptual framework and made the process evolve in real-time to flow smoothly. Take advantage of the expertise across your teams to solve difficult challenges.

2. Cross-training

With staff shortages, managers are now working together more closely because they have shared staff. The pandemic has shown us that cross-training is an effective, and necessary, way to use our exhausted and depleted workforce in an effective capacity. Even managers and directors have honed their skills to effectively jump back into the clinical and service realms where they started by participating in competencies to deliver safe, effective care and service.

3. Managing supply needs

When we think of emergency management, this pandemic stretched facilities and resources far beyond where we could have imagined. Communication from incident command to the frontline staff transformed from a concept to a daily routine. Ideas like 96-hour needs assessments allowed us to utilize modified concepts to ration usage of certain items until supply chains could replenish or we could work with other facilities to allocate resources.

Your ‘after-action’ report

In emergency management, an exercise or real event concludes with an after-action report to find what went well and what could be improved. I would encourage you to take this opportunity to look at all the great collaboration and shared insights that your staff has accomplished during the past two years. With the main concept of caring for your patients, your staff, and your communities, would you really like to go back to doing “hospital” the way you did it pre-pandemic? 

Or have you found that a collaborative, responsive, and forward-leaning team will become a staple of how your hospital functions moving forward?