Top of Mind 2021 Program Recap

25 Top of Mind 2021 Recap Harnessing the lessons of incident command Dr. Conroy agreed that Dartmouth- Hitchcock has experienced a similar shift: “The first wave was all about stuff versus the second wave, which is really all about staff.” She credited her organization’s incident command and its quick decision-making for the New Hampshire medical center’s ability to handle everything COVID-19 has thrown at them. Her biggest lesson from this fast-paced response is to carry that mindset forward to other challenges facing health care. “I want to bottle incident command — meaning, they got a lot of stuff done fast. We set up incident commands to get around the bureaucracy when we needed to move quickly,” Dr. Conroy said. “I’m not saying that everything we do should move that quickly. But I’d like to bottle a little of that and use it in our normal operations because sometimes we do just get stuck in our bureaucracy.” UPMC experienced a similar acceleration in operations in its response, which was no easy task considering the health system has 40 hospital and more than 90,000 employees, Sevco said. “We’ve seen that here, too, and it’s really been quite amazing,” he said. “I love the challenge that you put to all of us, which is how can we bottle that up?” Sevco said. “How can we move quicker and be stronger and provide access quicker for patients?”