Application of emergency preparedness principles to a pharmacy department’s approach to a “black swan” event: The COVID-19 pandemic

The authors of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Research and Education Foundation’s Pharmacy Forecast 2020 report introduced the concept of preparing and planning for a “black swan” event—a rare event, widely deemed improbable, that has massive consequences.¹ Forecast panelists’ responses indicated that while a good percentage of health-system pharmacy leaders had the skills necessary to rally staff to a successful response, few had an actionable plan in place that would allow them to embrace these types of circumstances. Further, it was their opinion that few health-system pharmacists would be able to take such an event in stride. The report’s authors highlighted the need for free-flowing communication, diverse experience/perspectives, and inclusive departmental planning to improve health systems’ ability to be prepared for such an improbable event.

Little could most of us imagine that within 2 months of that publication, we would face one of the largest black swan events in recent history. The emergence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 brought a rapid and profound need to redefine how health systems’ pharmacy departments functioned, reassess patient care services, and empower individual pharmacists to innovate in their practice areas to meet patient and provider needs. As information about the virus’ spread, transmission precautions and prevention, and treatment of infected patients rapidly emerged, pharmacy departments were at risk of being unable to keep up with the evolving recommendations while maintaining their foundational services.

This article describes the utilization of principles of emergency preparedness and disaster management that have guided our department through this time of great uncertainty. Leveraging the skills of individuals within the department specifically trained in emergency preparedness processes, we created a cadence of communication, decision-making, and implementation. As a result, our department has functioned cohesively and has remained in lockstep with practitioners and hospital leaders to support and maintain not just the core business of pharmacy but also high levels of integrated care.

The University of North Carolina Hospital (part of the UNC Hospitals system) is a 950-bed academic medical center located in Chapel Hill, NC. The medical center department of pharmacy employs more than 400 individuals and provides distributive and clinical pharmacy services to acute care, ambulatory, and infusion services. The operations of the department are executed through 6 distinct distributional sites. Additionally, a team of more than 100 pharmacists provides clinical services to the inpatient units and ambulatory clinics integrated across the medical center.

Advanced emergency response training

The foundations of preparedness within our pharmacy department started well before 2020, when planning around coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became a top priority. UNC Hospitals has sponsored staff members from all disciplines and fields across the institution to attend emergency preparedness training, specifically Healthcare Leadership for Mass Casualty Incidents (HCL) training. In early 2019, 2 pharmacists from our department completed the weeklong HCL training designed to prepare hospitals on the principles of emergency preparedness. One other pharmacist from our department has completed Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Events. Training was provided by the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, AL, which is a program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the US Department of Homeland Security. CDP training was executed through an all-hazards approach, ensuring that the training received was transferable to numerous scenarios and scalable within an organization. The incident command system (ICS) served as the basis for the training and is used for all manner of emergencies. ICS can be applied to all events, regardless of their size and complexity, and ensures that groups requiring collaboration during emergency response operate from the same logistical process. Mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery are the 4 primary phases of emergency management. To ensure hospitals were appropriately incorporated into emergency response and preparation, the hospital incident command system (HICS) was developed using the same common ICS principles and terminology.² Our institution, and therefore our department, was aligned in our approach to preparedness. Additionally, we had prior experience with response planning, as we have used these same principles for inclement weather events.

The role of a department-specific incident command

The basic principles of emergency management were employed through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, as the spread and impact of COVID-19 became more apparent, UNC Hospitals established a dedicated incident command center, using HICS principles for structure and execution. Given our departmental experience with HICS, our department was likewise able to establish an incident command scaled for oversight of pharmacy-specific items.

Given the size of our department and physical footprint of the multiple pharmacies within our organization, we felt that a pharmacy department–specific incident command structure would ensure that decisions were made and executed both in a timely manner and consistently across the department. Even before this event, our department had strived to operate with standard practices and procedures throughout our multiple pharmacy locations and had done so via a shared decision-making process. This established structure lent itself to transition naturally to a highly coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing our department to support our primary goals of prioritizing employee and patient safety. Furthermore, the department-level incident command allowed for sharing of ideas and rapid transmission of information from within the pharmacy leadership team to our regional director of pharmacy, who was representing us within the hospital incident command. The function of the department-level incident command allowed the regional director of pharmacy to focus on receiving information from leaders outside the department and aligning our department with actions of the organization as a whole. Because many COVID-19 response meetings were occurring simultaneously, this structure also allowed the regional director of pharmacy to attend the meetings necessary for that role while ensuring that the department was able to continue to prepare appropriately. This division of responsibility both empowered departmental leaders to lead their peers and provided many leaders with new opportunities for growth.

Our departmental incident command structure consisted of twice-daily meetings—one focused on dissemination of hospital-wide information and high-level departmental plans, and the other focused on detailed departmental planning and execution. The structure allowed for quick resolution of issues, escalation of feedback and concerns, and rapid adjustment to the changing processes within the organization. We established daily topics requiring review while allowing for just-in-time topics to be brought for discussion. Primary leaders and backup leaders were established for key services necessary to manage the COVID-19 response. In addition to designating the regional director of pharmacy as the departmental incident commander, we also identified primary and backup coordinators responsible for logistics, communication, and staffing. As additional needs were identified, similar assignments of primary and backup leaders were made.

Identifying key responsibilities and who would serve as primary and backup leaders in these roles aligned efforts, reduced redundant work, and prevented lapses and omissions. Focused handoffs to the weekend pharmacy administrator on call (AOC) ensured weekend support was in place and empowered leaders to recharge while away from work. An important piece of this weekend handoff was the weekly determination of what circumstances or threshold would warrant the AOC convening a weekend meeting of the full leadership team.

The purposeful timing and frequency of meetings ensured our department’s incident commander was prepared to escalate issues to hospital-wide leadership meetings in a timely manner. We continuously assessed and adjusted our meeting cadence as needed. Centralized meeting agendas facilitated tracking of recurring topics yet also allowed time for the priority topic of the day. Topics were assigned to a specific day of the week for routine review and discussion and could be escalated if urgent needs arose. Daily reporting of staffing levels and personal protective equipment (PPE) inventory levels promoted transparency and communication throughout our multicampus region. It also allowed us to detect minor disruptions as early as possible so the entire department could start making contingency plans. The consolidation of all pandemic topics into a single daily meeting allowed departmental leaders to prioritize attendance at this meeting, allowing decisions to be thoroughly discussed before execution. Given the diversity of our department, area-specific plans were still necessary. The centralized review and discussion of all departmental changes ensured as much consistency as possible and approval for deviation from the agreed-upon plan. Our meeting cadence and structure helped us prioritize decisions, establish timelines, gather input from our teams, and make collaborative decisions that all teams could support.

Delineation of responsibilities amongst pharmacy leadership

The leader designated to coordinate logistics was responsible for PPE monitoring, medication distribution, and handling workflows. Documentation of PPE inventory counts within all departmental operational areas occurred twice weekly through the use of a centralized spreadsheet, which provided transparency into our supply picture throughout the region and allowed shifting of PPE inventory between sites. It also helped us to anticipate run-out dates and advocate for allowances from our state board of pharmacy. Adjustments to medication handling workflows (eg, emergency code tray distribution, medication deliveries to and returns from the nursing units, bedside medication storage, and home medications) were evaluated and implemented in collaboration with nursing leadership.

The leader who provided oversight for staffing was responsible for monitoring of daily staffing levels as well as preparation for a surge of cases or loss of personnel. The departmental leadership reported staffing levels in each area daily. The increased transparency resulting from this reporting led to proactive discussions regarding how we would respond if one area of the department were affected more heavily than others. It also helped us plan for contingencies, such as if workload volumes increased or decreased significantly in one area or if staffing levels became unsustainable. Documentation of these contingency plans made it easier to pivot and adjust as needed based on last-minute needs or changes.

Early on, we established an official email communication channel for centralized messaging to the pharmacy department. Two pharmacy managers served as the primary leaders who were responsible for drafting an email for the regional director of pharmacy to send out at the end of every workday. The message contained organizational updates, reminders and resources for employee safety, and answers and/or updates to questions from employees. This scheduled communication helped keep teams updated and reduced anxiety, as employees knew to expect the daily update. This approach supported a “central voice” of leadership for the department, from which individual area managers could provide context and interpretation to allow local-level applicability. As the hospital and departmental response stabilized, the frequency of the communication was reduced to prevent email fatigue. Department communication was designed to be complementary to hospital-wide communication. Further details and department-specific execution of new procedures were provided within the local communication infrastructure. Managers were still expected to field and respond to individual employee questions and needs. We were able to utilize the twice-daily meetings to evaluate unique questions that had not been previously addressed with a standard response or to coordinate a consistent response when specific needs were noted in multiple areas of the department.

HICS training encourages leaders to record and retain all decisions made during response to a crisis. We replicated this process by redeploying a pharmacy team member to be present at all pharmacy department command center meetings and record the decisions and actions. Shared documents helped us stay organized when working either onsite or remotely. Utilizing a cloud-based platform also allowed multiple people to create and edit documents at the same time, which encouraged rapid development of communications and action plans. Having an accurate record of discussions and decisions documented in detail was useful for more than communicating action plans. When we began our recovery discussions, this record allowed us to carefully and thoughtfully plan the return of services to prepandemic state or determine if ongoing adaptation was necessary.

Our organized and purposeful approach to planning, decision-making, and communication provided structure in an unstructured time. This framework helped our teams thrive in the face of adversity and uncertainty. In contrast to the predictions in the ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast 2020 report, we found that not only did our leaders have the skills and ability to rally our staff, but our frontline staff were also able to take the rapid change in stride.

Key takeaways

When faced with a disaster, health-system pharmacy departments must ensure that medication management services are optimally maintained. This foundational mission of pharmacy departments could be fractured if not carefully managed during such circumstances. Failure to devote the attention needed could result in gaps in communications, feelings of anxiety among staff, and increased safety concerns.

Based on the COVID-19 experiences at our institution, health-system pharmacy leaders must strive to support specific advanced training of select individuals of the department in the area of emergency preparedness. These resources can be critical to the overall success of disaster response. Individuals identified for such training should be able to leverage the skills acquired to direct teams at a moment’s notice and to do so throughout the 4 phases of emergency response. These individuals should also establish well-coordinated communication lines, which assures that health-system pharmacy leaders and staff remain adequately informed about rapidly changing developments inherent in a crisis. Most health-system pharmacy departments require staff to complete annual online training on HICS. This training is typically intended to provide an overview of an institutional-level response to an incident; however, it generally does not address the need for a structured process internal to the pharmacy department.

Another critical component of success is the ability of team members, whether primary or backup leaders, to have the independent decision-making authority to support the quick progression of issues to a resolution during emergency response. This idea was well documented in a New York Times op-ed by McChrystal and Fussell³ titled “What 9/11 Taught Us About Leadership in a Crisis.” In the article, the authors discouraged forms of dependent structures that limited fast action and can generally be more disruptive than helpful.

Lastly, pharmacy directors and chief pharmacy officers should be part of the HICS structure within their institution, specifically the incident command team. Given the complexity of pharmacy operations within health systems and the dependence on medication within most catastrophic events, pharmacy department leaders should be present within the structure of any incident command team. Pharmacy leaders in health systems should engage the hospital leaders regarding the inclusion of pharmacy leader within future incident command planning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a strong reminder for health-system pharmacies about the need to establish and maintain emergency preparedness plans for the different array of conditions that could be encountered. Pharmacy leaders should seize this opportunity and ensure their departments are capable of navigating the next black swan event.

Disclosures: The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest.

The Frontline Pharmacist column gives staff pharmacists an opportunity to share their experiences and pertinent lessons related to day-to-day practice. Topics include workplace innovations, cooperating with peers, communicating with other professionals, dealing with management, handling technical issues related to pharmacy practice, and supervising technicians. Readers are invited to submit manuscripts, ideas, and comments to AJHP, at  ajhp@ashp.org.