PREPARATION IN SHORT SUPPLY; As hospitals plan for emergencies such as a flu pandemic, one challenge is how they'll keep their supply shelves stocked.(Special Report)

Byline: Shawn Rhea

Banner Health spokesman Bill Byron was among a large group of employees from the healthcare system's eight Phoenix-area hospitals to receive an early morning cattle call one day last month. According to the caller, there was a developing emergency and all pertinent managers and healthcare providers were to report to corporate headquarters or the central emergency stations at their respective hospitals.

"We didn't get any details then, but when we got (to the command stations) the situation described to us was that our hospitals were having a lot of people arrive at the emergency rooms with flulike symptoms,'' Byron says. "Then we started getting field reports from specific hospitals. One said, `We're at full capacity in our ED; we've got 40 patients in the hallways and another 30 in our lobby.' Patients were overwhelming the hospitals' capacities.''

For the next several hours, with the support of regional and state health department officials and emergency-response providers, Banner Health employees ran through a real-time drill to determine how well-equipped the company's Phoenix-area hospitals were to respond to an influenza pandemic. Supply-chain capacity and function were among the preparedness factors the drill tested.

In one scenario, all of the nearly 2,300 patient beds at the participating hospitals were filled, and healthcare providers and materials managers had to brainstorm about options for securing more. The group decided to set up stored cots and commandeer beds at their surgical centers. Moments later, the staff had to wrestle with how to best distribute a limited supply of Tamiflu anti-viral medication to the various hospitals.

"We learned how incredibly complex the situation would be if an actual emergency occurred,'' Byron says. "We learned that you've got to be careful with managing (the supply chain). We thought that we were pretty well-equipped for supplies, but there was real concern about…