Three executives at NYC Health + Hospitals have released a 400-page textbook featuring lessons in crisis management based on the health system's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The book, titled "The Covid-19 Response in New York City: Crisis Management in the Epicenter of the Epicenter," offers a look at how the nation's largest public health system responded to the outbreak. It features chapters on handling an unprecedented influx of patients, managing employee burnout during times of crisis and standing up contract tracing operations. Each chapter includes lessons meant to support healthcare leaders in managing major health crises.
It was written and edited by Laura Iavicoli, MD, chief medical officer of NYC Health + Hospitals Elmhurst; Syra Madad, the system's chief biopreparedness officer; and Eric Wei, MD, senior vice president and chief quality officer at NYC Health + Hospitals.
New York City became the epicenter of the nation's COVID-19 outbreak in the spring of 2020. New York City Health + Hospitals treated more than 25,000 patients with the virus from 2020 to May 2023, when the federal government ended the public health emergency. As a major publicly owned system, it also played a critical role in distributing tests and administering vaccinations to city residents.
"During the pandemic, we served all New Yorkers, not just our own patients," Mitchell Katz, MD, the health system's president and CEO, said in an Aug. 19 news release. "Our role as a government agency gave us the ability to avoid cash flow problems, buy personal protective equipment and distribute them to other hospital systems, and receive patient transfers and to hotel rooms for quarantine."
"We hope the experience of COVID will encourage investment in public hospitals and public health departments across the nation," Dr. Katz said.
The book is available for purchase on Amazon, with full proceeds supporting the health system's "helping healers heal" program.