Becker's Hospital Review

177 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Ochsner CEO Warner Thomas on Katrina, Harvey & Irma: 'In Any Sort of Disaster There's Also Opportunity' By Kelly Gooch W arner omas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health Sys- tem, was COO of the New Or- leans-based system when Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the area in 2005. Given his experience with Katrina, he is fa- miliar with the preparedness process and the rebuilding that takes place following such a natural disaster. Mr. omas recently answered questions from Becker's Hospital Review about his reac- tion to Hurricane Harvey and Irma and how affected health systems can move forward. Note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity. Question: What was your initial reac- tion to Harvey and its aftermath? Warner omas: My initial reaction is sym- pathy and empathy for the folks who are go- ing through the physical situation. Having gone through Katrina, we certainly can em- pathize with their situation. e important thing is even though the storm is gone, the aermath and the challenges and the anguish you have to deal with as part of the recovery will go on for months and years. And that's the thing we all have to remember — even though the story may be out of the headlines, it doesn't mean everybody's OK, and folks are going to be rebuilding for months and years to come. It's a very challenging thing to go through personally and it's challenging for an organization, so my heart goes out to them. Q: What kind of effect can Harvey have on healthcare in Texas? WT: From a positive perspective, when you go through events like this is it brings people closer. So a team that goes through this — that goes through Harvey, that goes through a Katrina — they're going to be closer; they're going to be more resilient; there's going to be more trust among people. And so there's a lot of positivity that can result from an organiza- tional and a cultural perspective and certainly from a personal perspective. e challenges are obviously there's tremen- dous rebuilding; there's tremendous damage; there's flooding. Even today, there are parts of Houston you cannot go back to because they're still flooded, and it's going to be weeks before they can get back there. So that's a really difficult situation to go through for a person. From my perspective, all people can do is continue to support each other, work together, allow people to take the time they need from work when they need it. Organiza- tions that are flexible with people and support their people through these trying times have a much tighter bond aerward, and I think employees really appreciate the organiza- tions that go above and beyond to help them through such a trying situation. Q: How can health systems rebuild after Harvey? WT: In any sort of disaster there's also oppor- tunity. Obviously take care of employees and take care of patients going through the di- saster. But also understand the long range of opportunities to work differently with other physicians, differently with other healthcare organizations and to be collaborative. e real benefit here is it opens up people's minds to do things differently than maybe they've done previously. We found that in Katrina. As we were going through Katrina, we looked at opportunities to build relationships with [Dallas-based] Tenet Healthcare and ended up purchasing several Tenet hospitals. So that created an opportunity for us to work with more physicians, more hospitals, more em- ployees and patients. So there's always going to be opportunities to work together in a dif- ferent way, and I think disasters like this — as difficult as they are to go through — also cre- ate new thinking, new ideas and new collab- oration that may not have existed previously. Q: How can healthcare systems bet- ter prepare for natural disasters like Harvey? WT: e key things include the basic funda- mentals of making sure you have adequate power sources, backup power generation and that you can run enough power for all of your facilities to really operate in a seamless fash- ion. Also, make sure you have appropriate wa- ter sources. One thing that happened during Katrina is we lost our water source from the city. We were fortunate we had a well at our flagship campus that continued to operate, but now at each of our campuses we have wells so we have running water consistently regardless of the city or town water source. en certainly supplies, staff — making sure you have a team A that stays through the storm and a team B that can come back and essentially relieve team A — are critical com- ponents to a plan like this. Preparation ahead of time makes the difference. Starting ahead of time, being thoughtful, thinking about your communication and the things you need to do before the storm gets close to you are critical components to make sure you're ready when a storm actually hits your area. n "The important thing is even though the storm is gone, the aftermath and the challenges and anguish you have to deal with as part of the recovery will go on for months and years." — Warner Thomas, President and CEO, Ochsner Health System

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