GloHSA Steering Board Activities during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Jan Cedric

During the actual pandemic COVID-19 crisis all of our GloHSA members are working out of their usual comfort zone and are involved in overwhelming other tasks to mitigate the impact of the plague. We want to keep you updated on what we are doing at the frontline of the crisis and at the nexus of global health and security: Watch out for our interview series.

This time our Vice President and Steering Board member, Dr Jan Cedric Hansen, who currently serves as chief medical officer of the Geriatric federation of a French Public Hospital Trust and as Director of the British strategic consultant firm StratAdviser.

Jan Cedric, tell us about some of the work you’ve been doing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Well, as a geriatrician and chief medical officer of the Geriatric federation of a French Public Hospital Trust, I am working frontline with geriatricians,  chief nurses & nurses teams to control the spread of the epidemic within a population of nearly 130 000 inhabitants aged 75y or more.

Meanwhile, I contribute to the decisions of the COVID-19 crisis war room strategic committee of the Hospital Trust as well as participating on numerous strategic decision meetings with the regional health authority agency. In addition I act as a liaison officer and pubic speaker with local, regional, national and international media on numerous subjects from home-care residents medical management to disaster medicine strategic approach of the pandemic.

What are the biggest challenges going forward, from your perspective?

What is still missing is a clear comprehensive definition of the strategic goals and success criteria of the management of this pandemic. Lacking those implies that key policy decision makers will not be able to recognize whether they approaching the end of the pandemic or not. They won’t be able to actually appraise the effects of their decisions. Indeed a global strategy, at least at the European level should be chosen rather than each member state working on its own strategy.

In which way does your work connect with GloHSA?

As a lecturer on hospital management, strategic steering of crisis/disasters and health aspects of international relations in different European Universities and beyond I insist on the nexus of health crisis and security and safety which is the DNA of GloHSA. My position as Chief Medical Officer and Registered Cindynician Expert-Auditor for the CBRN Risk Mitigation CoE Initiative of the European Commission allows me to provide tangible examples of that nexus and how it influences the direct and indirect decisions at local, regional, national and international levels.