Being logistically prepared for an influenza pandemic

Abstract

Critical to any healthcare professional’s pandemic preparedness is an understanding of the disease’s processes and how it can affect a population. Administrators and healthcare logistics professionals must be prepared to assist, as necessary, in risk mitigation through advance planning, demand forecasting and provision of support services once the crisis occurs. Healthcare administrative personnel and other emergency management professionals should begin their preparation by asking specific questions related to organisational readiness. While the rest of the world reacts to the impending pandemic with a degree of fatalistic apathy, healthcare logistics professionals must be determined to engage, continuously, effective countermeasures to help mitigate significant losses and the degradation of people’s health.