How to Prepare for Late-Season Flu Surges at Health Systems and Hospitals

February 11, 2026 ‐ HealthLeaders Media

By Christopher Cheney

Health systems and hospitals should take several steps to stay on guard for late season surges in flu cases.

On Feb. 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that flu activity was “elevated” across the country. The CDC estimates that since the current flu season began in October 2025 there have been at least 22,000,000 illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000 deaths. Last year, the CDC reported that flu activity peaked in early February.

Timothy Regan, MD, president and CMO of Lakeland Regional Health, which includes Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center in Lakeland, Florida, says the health system is maintaining a high level of vigilance for a late-season flu surge.

“We continually monitor what is going on in our communities,” Regan says. “We test all patients who present with flu symptoms. We have an infectious disease department that helps guide us in terms of preparedness.”

For health systems and hospitals, vaccination of their patient population is one of the primary strategies to avoid flu surges, according to Regan.

“Offering vaccination for flu is important,” Regan says. “We do a heavy push for vaccination early in the flu season.”

Reducing length of stay is one way to ensure that health systems and hospitals can handle late-season flu surges, Regan explains.

“We try to be nimble in terms of bed availability,” Regan says. “Multiple times during the day, executive leadership meets to review bed capacity and to see how we can manage length of stay.”

Reducing length of stay is crucial during the flu season because the number of patients who need to be admitted for hospital care rises, according to Regan.

“We have a communication system in place for physicians, nurses, case managers, and ancillary staff such as radiology and pharmacy to make sure the care of patients is efficient,” Regan says.

Efforts to reduce length of stay at Lakeland Regional Health include a home health program and discharge nurses.

“The home health program allows us to discharge patients to their homes and have nurses and physicians to round on patients in the home setting,” Regan says. “We have discharge nurses, who help floor nurses manage the discharge process, so bedside nurses can provide patient care while the discharge nurses make sure discharges are handled efficiently.”

Health systems and hospitals must be able to address staffing challenges during flu surges, Regan explains.

“We learned our lesson about maintaining staffing during the coronavirus pandemic,” Regan says. “We were able to maintain staffing during the pandemic without using travelers by making sure staff members were practicing at the top of their license, with measures such as using other staff to support physicians and nurses.”

Health system and hospital leaders must realize that it takes more than physicians and nurses to take care of patients during flu surges, according to Regan.

“For example, you need other staff members such as environmental services staff, laboratory assistants, and pharmacists,” Regan says. “We try to make sure that we are adequately staffed in a cost-effective way to manage our patient volumes.”

Maintaining adequate medical supplies and PPE

Part of preparedness for late-season flu surges at health systems and hospitals is ensuring there are adequate medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE).

Health systems and hospitals must have enough supplies for flu surges such as sanitizers for hand hygiene as well as PPE, Regan explains.

“Flu has airborne transmission, so you need to have masks such as N95 masks available,” Regan says. “In addition, you need gloves and gowns. These sound like simple supplies, but they are important to avoid the spread of flu viruses in your facilities.”

One of the key lessons from last year’s late-season flu surge was the need to plan for the duration of the season, according to Joan Smith, vice president of operations, global medical products and distribution segment at Cardinal Health.

For medical supplies and PPE, Smith says this planning includes two primary elements.

First, health systems and hospitals should stage inventory of supplies early in the season. Hospitals can create a pre-approved purchase order for supplies from their distributor, with key materials and quantities of supplies that they may need during a surge event.

Second, health systems and hospitals should establish alignment across their care settings. Cardinal Heath works with hospitals, ambulatory practices, and urgent care settings that often are under the same supply chain umbrella. When different care settings can share utilization trends and weekly status reports on inventory, they can be proactive to redistribute supplies to where they need them most, Smith says.

Harnessing data is pivotal for health systems and hospitals to make sure they have enough medical supplies and PPE for a late-season flu surge, according to Smith.

“Healthcare providers need to understand what happened in the prior year’s flu season,” Smith says. “Understanding data points helps them anticipate the need for medical supplies and PPE, then they need to react nimbly when there are changes in what the data was leading them to believe.”

There are several strategies for healthcare organizations to stay nimble for flu surges, Smith explains.

“They should have a pre-approved list of materials from their supply chain that they can share with their distributor,” Smith says. “They should determine whether they should reserve inventory for specific products. They should have a collaborative relationship with their distributors, which can reduce disruptions when flu surges occur.”

Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.

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