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- OUR IMPACT
Our Impact
Healthcare Ready was created in 2006 to protect patients and support our healthcare supply chain during a crisis. The resources on this page reflect our collective impact as we’ve worked to help build resilient communities that are prepared for, can respond to, and recover from natural disasters and pandemics.
Supporting Policies
For more than a decade, Healthcare Ready has been advocating for policies, strategies, and partnerships that strengthen the nation’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters. This includes our work to raise awareness on the importance of:
- State, local, and federal governments coordinating with the private sector;
- Giving the health supply chain priority assistance as critical infrastructure, which allows them to get into a federal disaster zone and work on restoration of services immediately after the event.
- Creating a streamlined and centralized Countermeasure Inventory Tracking Dashboard, which maintains an inventory of antivirals and personal protective equipment;
- Increasing the participation of pharmacists in public health initiatives;
- Developing the national framework for health departments to use pharmacies as vaccination sites; and
- Supporting HHS and DHS recommendations that prescribers consider making pre-need antibiotic prophylaxis available for first responders.
Case Study:
An innovative partnership between Allscripts and Surescripts helped pave the way for providers and pharmacists to access needed prescription history in states impacted by the catastrophic hurricanes of 2017. After Hurricane Harvey hit land, Surescripts and Allscripts quickly mobilized to allow any pharmacist in affected regions – regardless of which EHR or clinical platforms they used – to access patient medication history data through a free cloud-based application. Access to this medication history allowed pharmacists to issue refills quickly and accurately for patients impacted by the hurricanes, despite widespread power and systems outages across the region.
To raise awareness among large and small pharmacy chains, Allscripts and Surescripts partnered with major pharmacy benefit managers and retail pharmacy chains to deliver external and internal communications to generate awareness and reinforce the availability of the solution. Allscripts and Surescripts also worked with Healthcare Ready to amplify information to a network of public partners, including Disaster Medical Assistance Team pharmacists, as well as with the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) to make the system known to pharmacists.
Building Capacity
Healthcare Ready safeguards communities by ensuring they have both the capacity and resources to protect their residents from the most severe health impacts from a crisis. This includes:
- Increasing the ability of states to be prepared by sharing best practices with state emergency managers, public health departments, and Boards of Pharmacy;
- Providing guidance and assistance to states to ensure adequate stockpile programs;
- Advocating for medical supply chain emergency preparedness and business continuity planning; and,
- Being an effective ambassador for pharmacist education on business continuity and the pharmacists’ roles and responsibilities in disaster response.
Case Study:
In 2017, there were more than 11,000 opioid related deaths reported in Florida, a state facing an undeniable opioid crisis. In responding to a disaster that coincides with a widespread opioid overdose epidemic like this one, an essential part of a first responder’s emergency kit is Narcan, a medication that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.
Less than three days after Hurricane Michael made landfall, the American Red Cross reached out to Healthcare Ready for potential sources of Narcan, explaining that hundreds of doses were needed for shelters across the region. As displaced individuals sought refuge from the destruction of Hurricane Michael, operators of American Red Cross shelters in Tallahassee wanted to ensure they had a surplus of these life-saving kits.
When Healthcare Ready spread awareness of this atypical disaster relief need, OptumRx, a full-service prescription drug benefit provider with a broad network of retail chain and independent pharmacies was right there to answer the call. OptumRx donated and shipped 500 Narcan kits to the American Red Cross shelter managers in the state. The preemptive deployment of these Narcan kits provided first responders with a life-saving tool that was undoubtedly crucial in shelters in a state plagued by an opioid crisis.
Solving Problems
Healthcare Ready responds to and supports the equitable recovery of communities following a crisis. Examples include:
- Serving as the only private sector group to be invited to present during the Hurricane Sandy HHS Critical Infrastructure calls.
- Providing daily ad hoc inventory reporting on a daily basis during the H1N1 Pandemic in 2009-2010, which reduced the tremendous burden on the private sector supply chain;
- Facilitating medical supply donations and serving as the point of contact for police escorts and delivery credentials during multiple disaster responses;
- Increasing access for low-income patients through activation of the Emergency Prescription Assistance Program (EPAP); and
- Coordinating emergency fuel from both state authorities and private sector emergency fueling companies for distributors.
Case Study:
In April 2020, Business Roundtable, Project HOPE, and Healthcare Ready established a unique public-private partnership to deliver protective gear to America’s nurses, doctors, and others working to treat patients and stop the spread of COVID-19. The initiative leveraged the strengths of each organization, including the leadership of chief executive officers at America’s prominent companies through Business Roundtable and vast experience in responding to the world’s greatest health crises at Project HOPE and Healthcare Ready.
As a result, protective gear and other vital equipment was rapidly mobilized from manufacturers around the world and delivered to frontline healthcare workers in the United States. The partnership enabled the successful distribution of 3 million gloves, 1.5 million surgical masks, and 880,000 surgical gowns to ten states as well as New York City.
