Hospitals may not be adequately prepared for the next pandemic, study finds As the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in the U.S., a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) finds that hospitals nationwide may not be adequately prepared for the next pandemic. A 10-year analysis of hospitals' preparedness for pandemics and other mass casualty events found only marginal improvements in a measurement to assess preparedness during the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was published last month in the Journal of Healthcare Management. Our work links objective healthcare data to a hospital score that assesses the ability to save lives in a disaster. It attempts to fill a glaring gap in the national conversation on the need for improved assessments of and the opportunity for better hospital planning to assure readiness."