Transcript No Slide Title

Lessons
From
Katrina
ATHN Data Summit 2008, - July 31, 2008
Presenter: Marisela Trujillo, MSW
80% of New Orleans was severely flooded
HTC
Tulane Hospital and
Medical School
The Aftermath for Hemophilia
Patients
• 30% of all hemophilia patients in Louisiana
were displaced by Katrina (another 10% by
Rita)
• The factor pharmacy run by the state and
based in New Orleans was inoperable; this
pharmacy served the majority of Louisiana
patients
The Aftermath for the HTC
• 10 team members were spread out over 6
states
• No one could return home or enter the city
• No way to contact Tulane University (no
one even knew if Tulane would survive)
• No access to HTC funding
What Worked
• The resilience and strength of the patients
• The commitment and dedication of the HTC
team members
• The support of the larger hemophilia
community
The Major Necessities after a
Disaster
• Communications
• Meeting patients’ immediate needs
• Space for HTC staff
– to live
– to work
– to hold clinic
• Money
The Aftermath for the HTC
• For 5 weeks, no one was allowed to enter
the city
• HTC offices were not accessible for nearly
2 months
Lesson: Figure out the essentials and make
sure you have access to them!!
The Essentials
• Contact information on all team members,
colleagues, etc.
• Personal data such as licenses, malpractice
information, etc
• Patient database with contact information
– “give us a contact person in another state who
will always know where you are”
• Plan for meeting patients immediate needs
– how to obtain factor concentrates and
emergency care
Within 24 hours
• Made contact with the community involved
to offer assistance; Tulane HTC staff, State
of Louisiana Factor Program, NHF, CDC,
MCHB, HOG and various manufacturers.
• Developed plan with internal staff to
communicate supporting patient needs from
Louisiana; clinical, psychosocial and/or
medication.
• Started fielding patient calls to assist.
Internal operations
• Developed an intake sheet and chart as patients
called in so that all the information would be kept
together and identified.
• Began scheduling doctor’s visits if needed.
• Started dispensing medications to patients in need
through Gulf States Pharmacy.
• Eventually developed a database with identified
“Tulane” patients who were being followed by
Houston team for clinical or medication needs.
Biggest challenges
• Making things up along the way.
• Explaining to upper management what we
were doing with our purchases of extra
product for the community.
• Developing a new tracking system to
monitor product purchased and replaced.
• Assuring Louisiana patients that services
will be back up and operational for them.
Biggest rewards
• Ability to support the Tulane HTC staff and patient
community in anyway possible, from facilitating a phone
call, checking in with staff persons or dispensing
medication.
• Immense concern and support from the community at large
for our fellow regional HTC and our own HTC.
• Tremendous support from the manufacturers in providing
compassionate care product to those patients impacted by
this disaster.
• The privilege of any impact we may have had to better
someone’s day.
Immediate future planning faced by
Hurricane Rita
• Within 48 hours, developed an HTC staff
emergency contact list.
• Backed up our patient data on University system
and made flash drives for medical staff “just in
case.”
• Contacted HOG for pharmaceutical support for
Houston area and Tulane area patients as needed.
• Worked with the University system to receive
planning and closing updates.
Future planning
• Based on experiences, HTC developed a
disaster preparation packet of information
for patients that is mailed at the beginning
of summer.
• Re-evaluated data that we keep on patient
profiles and an HTC staff emergency
contact list is updated yearly
• Patient data is stored at larger University
server with automatic backups.