Hospital preparedness for pandemic influenza.

ON MARCH 1, 2006, the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center convened a meeting of senior government officials, hospital leaders, clinicians, and public health officials on Hospital Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza in Baltimore, Maryland. A list of meeting participants is provided in Appendix 1. Individual comments were not for attribution so as to foster a frank and open discussion. The purpose of the meeting was to examine ways the U.S. healthcare community, and especially hospitals, can prepare to care for the large number of patients that would be expected during an influenza pandemic. At the meeting, the group was asked to discuss the serious challenges hospitals and communities will confront, to try to reach accord on what high-level solutions should be pursued, and to examine actions and next steps that the group or others might take to bring about such changes. To structure the meeting conversation, the staff of the Center for Biosecurity presented its initial assessment of the issues. The assessment was informed by analyzing pre-meeting discussions with the group and other government and clinical leaders and by reviewing information from a broad range of government and industry reports and peer-reviewed literature. This meeting report synopsizes the presentations given at the meeting and the group’s discussions. Initially, a vision of success in hospital preparedness was proposed: