Experts point out, in order to determine whether a hospital's plan will work against a pandemic, it's crucial to run through the procedure beforehand. While events won't be exactly like the drill, following the drill will let health care workers and emergency response teams get comfortable with a similar situation. This was a lesson learned for some hospitals in Canada.





Amid the second wave of H1N1 last December, Canada's CSA Standards held a roundtable discussion with health care professionals to discuss what went well and what needed improvement in the country's handling of the pandemic.

"The major areas [that need improvement are] around the actual pandemic plans," says Dr. Allan Holmes, president of Global Medical Services and roundtable moderator. "We didn't really have a coordinated planning system between the federal government and the local health groups...It was difficult to try to respond almost on the spot."

Holmes notes that failing to have a proper plan in place could have been disastrous if hospitals had to deal with a surge of patients.

"If we had a lot more people ill with H1N1 it probably would have overtaxed the system," he says. "...Canadian hospitals are at 95 percent to 100 percent capacity in general. There's not a lot of surge capacity. When something like [a pandemic] causes a high surge, plans in place really need to address that."

The roundtable discussion and its corresponding white paper are efforts to address shortcomings in pandemic preparation.

"We want to make sure the message is there for the next time," says Holmes. "For a more severe pandemic, we need to do more to make sure we're better prepared."

In short supply

Most hospitals order supplies based on a "just-in-time" philosophy, preparing them for the week ahead, not what may be needed in the face of a pandemic, explains Barbara Russell, who chairs the Emergency Preparedness Committee for the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

"Just-in-time philosophy is not good for preparation," says Wisconsin's Tomczyk. "It's good for finances, but it doesn't help you in a disaster if you don't have [supplies] right there."

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