Medical City Healthcare is part of a collaboration between public and private entities that created the Dynamic Ventilator Reserve, an online inventory of ventilators across the country that can be redeployed to areas of need.
Medical City and its parent company HCA Healthcare are part of the partnership to support the fight against the pandemic, where hospitals enter available equipment and facilities in need can request to use it. The American Hospital Association is helping to organize the effort and is working with FEMA to redistribute the supplies as needed.
Medical City CEO Erol Akdamar says the reserve is not a system he has seen before, but says that it creates a template for emergency response if a similar need arises due to another pandemic or natural disaster.
HCA Healthcare, which is a nationwide health system based in Nashville, has donated around 1,000 ventilators as a part of the reserve. Most of the requests have come from the New York and New Jersey area, where the pandemic has stretched the health system the most. The plan is for the ventilators to be returned once they are no longer needed, Akdamar says.
Medical City hospitals have contributed 12 ventilators as well. The ability to donate excess supplies comes in part due to the response of North Texas residents. “The way the community has responded has flattened the demand curve,” says Akdamar. “The numbers we are seeing shows that we have the capacity and equipment to meet the needs of the community.”
The pandemic has brought about a sense of collaboration amongst sometimes competitors of the major health systems, and the system presidents have been meeting twice a week while the chief medical officers check in daily across systems.”The sharing of knowledge and expertise has been fluid and generously given for the benefit of the community,” Akdamar says.
