The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices invited Powered for Patients project director Eric Cote to serve as a panelist for a discussion on the intersections of supporting emergency preparedness for healthcare facilities and bolstering the healthcare workforce at an August 2023 Healthcare Workforce Summit held in Bloomfield, CO.
Cote addressed the connection between workforce challenges in the hospital sector and emergency power resilience, noting that retirements among hospital facility directors are outpacing the ability of hospitals to fill vacancies. Cote said the shortage of facility directors, and other members of hospital engineering departments, can have a direct impact on emergency power readiness. Among the solutions Cote offered to address staff shortages was leveraging available technology to remotely monitor emergency power systems and provide automated, real time notifications when emergency power systems are activated or experience a problem while operating.