Comparing Responses to COVID-19 Across Institutions: Conceptualization of an Emergency Response Maturity Model

The impact of Covid-19 on hospitals was profound, with many lower-resourced hospitals' information technology resources inadequate to efficiently meet the new needs. We interviewed 52 personnel at all levels in two New York City hospitals to understand their issues in emergency response. The large differences in IT resources show the need for a schema to classify hospital IT readiness for emergency response. Here we propose a set of concepts and model, inspired by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) maturity model. The schema is designed to permit evaluation of hospital IT emergency readiness, permitting remediation of IT resources where necessary.