Name
#118 From Blueprint to Bedside: Improving Alternate Care Facility Planning by Using the Hotel-to-Hospital Conversion for Acute Care
Content Presented On Behalf Of:
Other entity not listed
Session Type
Poster
Date
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Start Time
5:00 PM
End Time
7:00 PM
Location
Prince Georges Expo Hall E
Focus Areas/Topics
Trending/Hot Topics or Other not listed
Learning Outcomes
1. Describe the core components of the H2H (Hotel-to-Hospital) model and explain how these elements support scalable and reproducible Alternate Care Facility (ACF) planning during prolonged, acute medical surges.


2. Identify the operational and clinical advantages of applying the H2H model in comparison to traditional ACF approaches, with emphasis on patient- and staff-centered design principles.


3. Apply lessons learned from the H2H model to inform future emergency preparedness strategies, including integration into regional planning frameworks for sustained medical surge response.
Session Currently Live
Description
Large-scale sustained medical surges (like the COVID-19 pandemic) will exceed existing hospital capacity and can result in activation of Alternate Care Facilities (ACFs). Traditional ACFs have repeatedly demonstrated limitations including inadequate privacy, HVAC control, infection prevention challenges, lack of integrated clinical systems, and poor patient and staff experience. With grant funding from the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and in conjunction with the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) pilot, we sought a scalable, rapidly deployable, and patient-centered alternative: converting a hotel into a hospital. Hotels have intrinsic advantages: private rooms, bathrooms, temperature control, food service, laundry, and established infrastructure. They have been used for ACFs previously but usually only for limited medical care. To address this, a multidisciplinary team, including experts from emergency management and hospital operations as well as architects, engineers, IT, clinical departments, response partners, and hotel leadership, embarked on a three year research project to prove a hotel could be a viable solution for an ACF. We converted portions of a hotel into a hospital fully integrated with our hospital’s electronic medical record, supply chain, pharmacy, lab, radiology, respiratory therapy, and infection prevention to operate as a “wing” of the hospital. Conversion activities included architectural design; creating ICU and med-surg capabilities in hotel rooms and conference rooms; simulating oxygen delivery systems and emergency power; adapting hotel rooms for nurses’ stations, pharmacy, laboratory, and diagnostic imaging. Existing hotel services such as food service, laundry, housekeeping, wayfinding, and maintenance were incorporated to support healthcare operations. The team validated patient flow, admissions, medication management, specimen handling, radiology workflows, telehealth, emergency response, and end-to-end documentation through a “Day in the Life” activities with frontline clinicians. Lessons learned include validating standard patient care in repurposed hotel beds (including CPR quality equivalent to hospital beds); rapid conversion of hotel spaces into single and double occupancy med-surg rooms with integrated headwalls; full integration with IT services including remote telemetry and features such as 5-digit calling; a production build of Epic™ with full feature PACS, EKG, and lab capabilities; establishing point-of-care lab services; and on-site Pyxis™ mediation dispensing from the pharmacy. Ultimately, this project demonstrates that the H2H is a viable solution for expanding staffed bed capacity without building new facilities. A hotel can be converted into a functional, hospital-integrated ACF in less than 4 weeks and is capable of safe, patient-centered care during prolonged medical surges. Existing hotel infrastructure and services significantly reduce construction needs, improve patient experience, and support hospital operations. The H2H model represents a reproducible, scalable, and useful model for ACF and prolonged, acute medical surge planning.