ABSTRACT
Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................150 H1N1 Background ...........................................................................................150 Flu Cases in Illinois ...........................................................................................154 H1N1 Case Study Background ......................................................................... 155
The “XYZ” Hospital Network ....................................................................... 155 Pandemic Preparedness .................................................................................158 Information Glut .......................................................................................... 159 Streamlining and Targeting Communication ................................................ 159
Community Hospital Emergency Department/Immediate Care Activities ........160 Discussion .........................................................................................................162 Conclusions ......................................................................................................164 References .........................................................................................................165
Introduction Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data analytics techniques can be effectively applied by hospital operations, quality, planning, and public relations staff to better prepare for outbreaks of disease within hospital, hospital network, and health system service areas. The community hospital network case study that follows provides examples where corporate and hospital operations staff collaborated and leveraged data analytics, GIS, disaster preparedness planning, and operations/ logistics management skills. Techniques developed in this example led to improved preparedness in advance of the next potential outbreak of disease and can be applied to other similar institutions and scenarios.
