The Hospital Emergency Readiness for Resilience and Response Optimization (HERO) Network
Leaders in hospital emergency management (EM) are invited to join our network and be part of a forum that discusses timely EM topics. Once you join we will regularly release discussion topics to engage members in conversation about relevant and emerging issues in EM. This is a place to share your experiences and learnings, or pose questions of your own. Below, you can learn more about our origins and research. We look forward to welcoming you to the HERO Network!
About Us
The HERO Study
Hospital EM has never been more important and timely, and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed notable disparities across EM programs. During the pandemic, U.S. hospitals responded with a variety of EM practices to navigate the crisis while simultaneously providing quality care to patients and a safe environment for staff. Through a mixed-methods approach, our research analyzes how rural and urban hospitals effectively employed their EM program to manage the crisis, while providing quality care for patients. Our findings will provide an evidence base for effective EM programs that can be used during the current pandemic and in future disaster events.
The HERO Network was born out of our initial research findings. We are grateful to be awarded funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01 HS028240) for this work. Thank you for taking the time to visit our site– more to come!
Core Investigator Team
Mariam Krikorian Atkinson, PhD | Principal Investigator | Harvard University, TH Chan School of Public Health
Paul Biddinger, MD | Co-Investigator | Massachusetts General Hospital
Sara Singer, PhD, MBA | Co-Investigator | Stanford University, School of Medicine
Research Staff
Tuna Hayirli, MD/PhD Candidate | Research Fellow | Harvard University
Masha Kuznetsova, MPH, PhD Candidate | Research Fellow | Harvard University
Afroze Chughtai, PhD Candidate | Data Programmer | Harvard University
Elizabeth Bambury, BS | Research Assistant | Harvard University
C (Clara) To, MSPH Candidate | Research Assistant | Harvard University
Aims of the Study
Aim 1
disseminating findings
Identify and compare EM practices responding to the COVID-19 pandemic across 12 urban and rural U.S. hospitals.
Aim 2
disseminating findings
Develop a validated scale measuring EM dimensions across study hospitals.
Aim 3
in progress
Analyze outcomes under different applications of EM to derive core elements and benchmarks of successful EM programs.
HERO Network 