3 Ways Healthcare Operations Management Adapted During the Pandemic

Apr 11, 2023 . 3 min read

Closeup of hands of clinician checking inventory in medical store using digital tablet.

News reports and social media posts over the past two years have provided unique visibility into the front lines of the pandemic. The world watched as healthcare settings of all sizes—and staff in all departments—were pushed to their limits during COVID-19 surges. Behind the scenes, healthcare operations management teams were also challenged to quickly pivot in order to keep up with their facilities' growing needs.

Here are three major areas where these teams had to evolve to effectively support healthcare staff—and lessons learned about medical crisis management along the way.

1. Discovered Innovative Ways to Use Space and Add Capacity

As ERs and ICUs filled with unexpected swells of sick and contagious patients, hospitals needed to find new spaces to administer care while preventing disease transmission. Healthcare operations teams went to work troubleshooting solutions.

Many hospitals decided to convert observation or rehabilitation areas into inpatient spaces, used intermediate or monitored care units as makeshift ICUs, and prepared post-acute care units for critical care. Additionally, separate nonpatient care areas were used to hold, and often treat, patients without COVID-19 when inpatient space was full. One way operations teams helped ensure these converted spaces were adequately equipped for patient care was by accounting for each bed in the hospital's electronic health record. Categorizing and charting inpatient beds digitally helped keep staff organized, aligned, and abreast of any changes in the space.

In addition, some hospitals responded to the pandemic by transferring patients to nearby hospitals and care centers. By collaborating with nearby facilities, management teams could help balance the load on the medical community during times of intense inpatient needs.

Based on the actions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developed tool kits for troubleshooting space, staffing, and supply shortages that can apply to future surges or natural disasters.¹ This includes strategies for converting spaces, using hospital-based alternate care sites, and providing more telehealth services. With these established guidelines and processes, support teams can increase their response efficiency in the future.

2. Explored Flexible, Safe Staffing Solutions

An overflow of patients all carrying a highly transmissible disease led to overworked, and often, infected healthcare staff. Due to mandatory quarantines, medical facilities had to adjust sick leave policies to protect staff and patients while ensuring there were still enough clinicians to cover care needs. Employees beyond medical staff were also impacted; facilities found themselves short on professionals related to environmental services, logistics, and information technology.

Initial strategies some operations teams took to manage staffing included:²

Increasing staffing ratios
Training clinicians to provide an additional level of care with supervision, such as teaching outpatient providers to offer inpatient care in general medicine
Bringing providers into new areas, such as training respiratory therapists who usually provide home care to provide inpatient care
Shifting staff services across the labor pool, such as moving front desk coordinators to patient registration
Hiring additional clinicians and support staff

While these changes have lightened the load on hospital staff, they have not been a silver bullet—especially when surge capacities remain high for an extended period. Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stepped in. Initially, doctors, nurses, and other care providers were advised to quarantine according to standard population CDC guidelines. However, when this approach led to significant staff shortages, the CDC changed quarantine guidelines specifically for healthcare providers.

The CDC now advises healthcare staff to return to work based on a combination of factors, including their vaccination status, their workplace's patient capacity, and their symptom severity.³ Depending on a clinician's unique set of circumstances, they could see "no work restriction" (or no sick leave) to up to 10 days of quarantine. These guidelines can be tweaked by an operations management team, but for the most part, they are likely in effect in hospitals nationwide to mitigate staffing gaps.

3. Strengthened Inventory Management Practices

Shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators dominated news cycles and press conferences during the early months of the pandemic. Hospitals also faced limitations in other supplies and raw materials as the pandemic continued and supply chain issues ballooned worldwide. A 2021 survey found that 99 percent of hospitals had some level of challenge with supply, whether it was an increase in prices or a shortage in inventory needs.⁴ These needs ranged from surgical gowns to crutches to components for critical machinery.

Healthcare operations teams had to get creative to collect necessary supplies in 2020 and 2021. Many facilities sought out different (and sometimes unconventional) vendors or established new partnerships to get what they needed during early surges. For example, Vanderbilt University Medical Center partnered with the nearby Jack Daniel's distillery to make hand sanitizer in one of its whiskey bottling plants.⁵

Inventory management remains an ongoing challenge, but operations managers work to keep a supply of critical items on hand rather than relying on the just-in-time deliveries of the past. One health system in Georgia now aims to keep between 20 and 40 days on hand.⁶Having a cloud-based inventory platform on-site provides facilities with the transparency to see supply availability across multiple hospitals or care sites.⁷

Additionally, having an inventory platform helps teams anticipate when parts will soon need replacing or maintenance. However, when it comes to maintaining key components of critical machinery, it's invaluable to have reliable products that are built to sustain high capacity. Working with a manufacturer known for high-quality healthcare equipment and clinical accessories like GE Healthcare—which also provides easy online ordering—can help any operations team stock their inventory with reliable resources for their staff.

Moving Forward With Lessons Learned

Challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic led many leaders to rethink established approaches to medical crisis management. As a result, healthcare operations management teams were confronted to find creative uses of space, inventory planning for shortages, and techniques to support staff. Carrying these lessons forward can help any hospital set the stage for addressing future crises.

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