A Multisite Investigation of Areas for Improvement in COVID-19 Surge Capacity Management.

The congressionally authorized National Disaster Medical System Pilot Program was created in December 2019 to strengthen the medical surge capability, capacity, and interoperability of affiliated healthcare facilities in 5 regions across the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn how participating healthcare facilities handled medical surge events during an active public health emergency. We applied a modified version of the Barbisch and Koenig 4-S framework () to analyze COVID-19 surge management practices implemented by healthcare stakeholders at 5 pilot sites.