Some of you may recall that my responsibilities extend to emergency preparedness for a large 5 hospital healthcare organization in Philadelphia. I look for any informtion that will help me prepare my facilities for Y2K. This report makes me very nervous. I would like your takes on this it.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/19990803_xex_fema_left_da.shtml

Martha

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Answers

Man! I am sorry. I did not see the post from Dina McCullough until I had already sent mine. Again, please excuse me.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

That's allright Martha, shows you are thinking, to come up with the same issues w/o having read it here first. Would say if you find time you'll find some posters here who are very cutting edge. How about, if possible, some insight on what your hospital is doing to prepare for Y2K electrical outages and otherwise.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 1999

Thanks for the understanding. I posted that from work, and thought I had checked the whole board for duplicates. I need to take more time to be sure in the future.

Well, actually we are doing quite a lot. All of our facilities are planning to reduce their occupancy dramaticly. For example, our main campus is 800 beds. We plan to reduce that number to 150 to 200. We will consolodate them (Babies and everyone) into one building. That way we can shut down the rest of the buildings and concentrate power into that one. All non-essential power will be shut off. And of course, as it will be Winter, we will have to drain pipes, etc.

Emergency generators are SOP for hospitals, and we have 4 on the main campus. Engineering is working right now to make sure we will have the power needed in the appropriate areas. We will also have a tanker of fuel at each facility, and manual pumps to feed the generators.

We are not happy with the answers we are getting from PECO, but have the feeling that we cannot really do much about it but prepare for the worst. We have also gotten some disturbing reports from our gas company. They rely on PECO too, and they are not optimistic.

We are located in a low income, inner city part of Philly. I am concerned about the possibility of riots, but we will have to wait and see. One good thing is, if we do lose power, we will have the Police on campus. We will be providing the District Commander a Command Center. Their generator only provides power for about 2 hours.

We are going to be as prepared as possible. Thank God our President and CEO are taking all of this seriously. My concern as the Disaster Coordinator is that this area has not seen a real disaster in over 40 years. I do not count the 1996 blizzard a disaster, it was nothing more than an inconvenience. People here haven't got a clue as to what happens in a real disaster.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Hi Martha! As an R.N. with some hospital experience, I'd strongly suggest to the hospital the following: 1. Work with the hospital's education department to go back to having the staff relearning all the low-tech skills that have been replaced. Nurses need to practice NOT using IVACs, but using drip-rates posted around the floor. Use glass thermometers, manual B.P.s, and try a week-long rehearsal using low-risk patients to re-learn how to monitor critical patients without the monitors, but with excellent assessment skills instead. Teach everybody CPR, so that even the housekeeping people can be put to work bagging ICU patients if necessary. Get "Amish vacuum cleaners" (i.e.carpet sweepers) to substitute for vacuum cleaners. Buy a lot of bleach, then teach five people in the facility how to turn swimming pool water into potable drinking water. Stock up on t.p., antibiotics, antibacterial hand soap, paper towels, bandages, and suture materials, labor and delivery supplies, rubber gloves, disposable pads, paper food supplies, and laundry detergent. Have patients' families help as much as possible, like they do in Asia, including cots in each room. Cancel all private rooms except for infection control. Make sure every staff member has a flashlight in their pockets, with solar chargers available for the roof. Go back to nursing notes on paper, and have lots of extra blank notes and pens. Put solar lighting into your staff and patient parking lots--not only for safety, but for the confidence issue. (If the public sees a hospital handling this well, then they can handle their own problems more securely.) Have the food people stock up on ready to serve foods (potato flakes, jello, tuna and other canned meats,cold cereal, dried milk, and canned fruits.) Cancel all surgeries except for emergencies from Dec. 15-31. I'd add more, but I have to take the kids to the fair. I'll keep this in mind for you today and come back.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Hi again, Martha, I thought of one last biggie for you to consider. Ifyou have five hospitals, it's a lot easier to cut down on unneeded duplications if each hospital has its own specialties. This would take a lot of political greasing, but I would suggest that you have the five divided into: 1. obstetrics and peds 2. trauma and orthopedics 3. recto-abdominal and dialysis ("bellies and butts") 4. cardiac and elderly (including surgery) 5. Rehab and psych If the emergency people in the city know in advance where to take their patients, you won't have to be so redundant in staffing and supplies. Hope this helps.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Hi Ann -

Thanks for the input. Your suggestions are great and will be passed along to the DON. She is pulling her hair out trying to make sure she has all of her bases covered.

As for the 5 hospitals. One is acute care complete with a Level I Trauma Center (we all ready see more gun shot wounds than any other hospital in the city), three are long term skilled nursing, one is physical rehab, and one handles psychiatric patients.

We are implementing a rather elaborate Y2K plan in conjunction with our Hospital Emergency Incident Command System. We will have a manned Command Center starting December 30th, and will maintain control during the weekend and beyond if necessary. All non-critical surgeries will be cancelled. We will be at full staff for New Year's Eve and through the weekend. Then we will see where we are and what we need to do to continue. I truly doubt that it will all be over within 72 hours. I hope so, but I doubt it.

My greatest concern is the uncertainty. It is hard to convince people that they need to prepare to this level when they have not needed to in the past. As I am not only the Safety Officer and Disaster Coordinator, but also Director of Security, I do have my work cut out for me. Wish me luck!

-- Anonymous, August 05, 1999