Through teamwork, communication, and delegation, the State of Florida was able to prevent a crisis caused by a natural disaster aligning with the expiration date of critical professional licenses in the healthcare field. Below are the key elements of the DOH’s success.
Forward Thinking
On September 4, six days before one of the strongest hurricanes in US history (source) was set to make landfall in Florida, Governor Rick Scott issued an emergency executive order.
The executive order put the Director of the Division of Emergency Management, Bryan Koon, in charge.
The following morning, the Director issued an emergency order removing a regulation that would negatively impact the execution of the state’s emergency plan. This order gave the DOH the authority it needed to execute the state’s emergency plan (source).
This order included lifting restrictions that would limit the distribution, dispensing, and administering of prescription drugs for 30 days.
Florida pharmacists’ licenses were set to expire in September, the same month as Hurricane Irma.
At the same time, Florida pharmacists’ licenses were set to expire in September, the same month as Hurricane Irma. The DOH reviewed the Director’s order and quickly decided to extend the license expiration date to October 30 (source), the maximum amount of time allowed under the order.
This process was completed in less than two days, which is most impressive when you consider the state was in the process of evacuating 6.3 million people, preparing hospitals, and setting up emergency shelters.
The DOH also made this information available to licensees, while they prepared their own homes and families for the hurricane.
Devastating Effects
When the hurricane left Florida on September 11, 6.7 million Floridians were left without power (source). The power outages, flooding, and mandatory evacuations forced most pharmacies to close. Walgreens alone was forced to close almost all of their 830 Florida pharmacies during the storm (source).
Before the storm hit, the DOH knew pharmacies would see a surge in traffic caused by lost and damaged medications, as well as challenges related to storing temperature-sensitive medication.
Because of the State’s decisive action as well as great leadership in the private sector, the executive order triggered Walgreens to start helping their customers plan for the storm and finding a pharmacy after they had evacuated (source).
This massive power outage added an unexpected challenge for the 11,371 pharmacists that needed to renew their licenses.
However, at the time of the executive order, no one knew the power would not be fully restored until September 19. This massive outage added an unexpected challenge for the 11,371 pharmacists that needed to renew their licenses while dealing with an increased workload and potentially flooded homes.
The foresight of the State of Florida helped these pharmacists focus on aiding patients recovering from the storm. If the Governor, Emergency Director, and Board of Pharmacy had waited until after the storm to issue the order, the communication would have been extremely difficult to deliver, and much less effective.
The Importance of Distributed Systems
At CE Broker, one of our goals is to help licensing boards provide timely, relevant, and helpful communication and support to licensees. Through 15 years of experience, we’ve learned this goal is even more important during times of crisis.
Because of this extensive experience, we continually invest in our technology to ensure we can provide this support during and after natural disasters.
Different geographic locations ensure that a hurricane on the east coast or a blizzard in Colorado does not affect our ability to provide support.
Most of our efforts have focused on creating a geographically distributed system. For example, our communications, customer support, and executive teams are located in both Florida and Colorado. In addition to staff, our technology infrastructure, such as servers and databases, are backed up in multiple locations as well.
The different geographic locations ensure that a hurricane on the east coast or a blizzard in Colorado does not affect our ability to provide the needed support to licensing boards, CE providers, health systems, and licensees.
When a state is affected by a natural disaster like hurricane Irma, our distributed systems ensure we can always be a helpful and responsive partner.
The Outcome
Today is November 27, just under a month after the extended deadline.
At the time of the executive order, when Hurricane Irma hit Florida, 11,371 pharmacists needed to renew their licenses. If the DOH had not extended the deadline, the licenses of 5,672 pharmacists (49%) would have expired, leaving them ineligible to work.
Because the deadline was extended, 94% of the pharmacists affected by the storm were able to renew their licenses and continue helping patients.
What You Can Learn From Florida
Disclosure: The below recap only focuses on one item and one person’s perspective. When planning for a crisis, it is important to get multiple perspectives. There are full books and articles on the best practices and strategies for managing risks associated with a natural disaster, and we would recommend spending time reading them before doing your own planning.
One of these articles is Managing Risks, published by the Harvard Business Review.
The state of Florida focused on empowering people to improve the outcomes.
The authors, Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes, make the point that “risk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that can be solved by drawing up lots of rules and making sure that all employees follow them.” The authors point out that although rule-based management is effective for managing preventable risk, it is inadequate for external risks, like a hurricane.
From an outside perspective, it seems the state of Florida embraced this point and took an approach opposite to rule-based management. Instead, the state focused on empowering people to improve the outcomes by removing barriers to response time during a natural disaster..
This is key; take one minute to ponder the below point.
The Florida Emergency Management Executive Order is only 11 pages long and double-spaced. The rules needed to manage a crisis in the third largest state (source) take up only 11 pages.
If you read over the order (link), the basic objective is to reduce rules and regulations, simplifying decision making. The reason this is so powerful is it gives everyone involved the mandate to be helpful and to focus on the people they were hired to serve.
Job Well Done
When natural disasters hit, we often focus on the negative outcomes. That is why we at CE Broker wanted to take this opportunity to point out the job well done by the Florida Department of Health, the Division of Emergency Management, and the Governor’s Office.
About The Author
Adam Stack is the head of Marketing and Licensee Data at CE Broker. Under his leadership the marketing team has created campaigns with a response rate as high as 82.31%. Before joining CE Broker, Adam worked as a consultant that helped companies including Coca Cola and top athletic brands solve complex marketing, logistics, and data problems.
Adam is a former professional climber. Before work at sunrise, he can be found racing friends up the mountains above Boulder Colorado.
About CE Broker
CE Broker is used by 1.2 million licensees to track and report their CE/CME. These licensees span more than 170 professions, 13 states and 2 countries.
Through partnerships with State Boards and Departments of Health, like the Florida DOH, CE Broker helps them increase compliance rates and reduce their operational costs. We simplify and streamline licensure for Boards, Providers, and Licensees using great design and concise communication.
