Council Connect Articles

South Bay Highlighted in CHA Disaster Planning Conference

Who

All CHA members

What

On Sept. 15, Hospital Council RVP Jo Coffaro, along with COOs Alison Kerr of Stanford Health Care, Omar Chughtai of El Camino Health, Dr. Dolly Goel of Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center, Dr. Meenesh Bhimani of O’Connor Hospital, and Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of Healthcare System Preparedness for Santa Clara County, presented “COVID-19 Surge: Hospitals Implement Countywide Virtual Bed Management System” as part of the CHA annual disaster preparedness conference.

The presentation was an overview of the work done by all hospitals in Santa Clara County from November 2020 to March 2021 to level load patients in order to help all hospitals during the third surge. The success of this work was in large part due to the efforts of the COOs meeting daily with Dr. Kamal and shared dial data on capacity, supply and equipment needs, and the transferring of patients to ensure no hospital became overrun with patients.

Takeaway/Next Steps

The presentation is available on the CHA website.