Tomorrow, June 10, the VAMC in Albany, NY will be conducting what they are calling a Y2K Power Outage test, planning to run only on back-up generators. Interesting, in light of the fact that Niagra-Mohawk has been touting its Y2K readiness, telling customers "not to worry." Anyone no of other hospitals conducting tests of this nature?

-- Tweetie Bird (birdcage@nona.yaya), June 10, 1999

Answers

For reasons other than Y2K every hospital or facility that deals with critical issues (such as nuclear plants) should be testing their back up systems on a regular basis (at least yearly). I would consider this good news...and perhaps one of the positive outcomes of Y2K+... Perhaps we will have learned at the infrastructure level to be more vigilant in preparedness.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), June 10, 1999.

Testing, yes. But running on generators all day, dropping from 8 to 2 elevators, closing ORs is a first in my 15 years of hospital work. I'm glad they're doing this, but I wonder if on some level NIMO has been less than reassuring about what will happen Jan. 1.

-- Tweetiebird (birdcage@nona.yaya), June 10, 1999.

Tweetiebird, from our experience, any Hospital willing to do this -- that's unusual! 2 elevators = vital patient & equipment movement only, employees walk the stairs. 14 floors, oooh those calf muscles get pretty sculpted ;^)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 10, 1999.

A & L: Indeedie. Ten floors hereabouts. Certainly cuts down on cigarette breaks. But it IS a 'full power out' test, and no one said running a hospital without the grid would be easy. Ask the surgeons in Belgrade: their main teaching hospital (700 beds) was down to one OR running after NATO doused the lights. A war crime, in my book. BTW, we've had staircase races: the winner so far is ten flights in 48 seconds. Toned indeed.

-- Tweetiebird (birdcage@nona.yaya), June 10, 1999.

This is GOOD NEWS! Now if we could get 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 other business and governments to do this before the end of summer, we may have a chance.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), June 10, 1999.

All VA Medical Centers will conduct a drill....I understand the one in our area tested last week. Came off the grid for 8hrs. found some minor problems with the "manual way". All VA Medical Centers must set up a Command Post 72 hrs. before the rollover and stay set up until Jan. 10. Try requesting leave Dec. 29, 30, 31 and the first week of January. These drills are necessary precautionary measures and must be done in order to prove due dilligence in the event there is a problem.

-- noname (noname@wantmyjob.com), June 10, 1999.

Welllll....we are waiting....what happened????

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), June 11, 1999.