WHITE PAPER
How To Prepare Your Healthcare Organization For
A Severe Weather Event
INTRODUCTION
In 2012, there were a total of 939 tornadoes in the United States, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). That same year, NOAA
reports that 67,000 wildfires destroyed more than 9 million acres. Meanwhile, storm
surges from hurricanes have been known to raise flood waters as much as 20 feet.
During an event such as these, your facility could lose power or connectivity. You
might have to evacuate, or take on patients from another hospital or healthcare
facility that has been evacuated. Are you prepared to serve your community during a
disaster? And if so, for how long?
Extreme weather conditions can happen suddenly. Even with weather forecasts,
we never fully know when a severe weather event is going to arise. When disaster
strikes, that’s when a healthcare organization is needed the most. Yet some events
can adversely affect the ability for hospitals and healthcare providers to operate
according to their traditional response plan, regardless of whether they are a single,
free-standing facility or a large healthcare system.
Being down for even one day can result in a financial loss of millions of dollars. Damages from Superstorm Sandy are estimated at $65.5 billion, according to Hellman
Worldwide Logistics, making it the second costliest Atlantic hurricane, behind Katrina.
After Hurricane Ike in 2008, FEMA reported that Medical Hospital University-Galveston lost $276 million in revenues as a result of reduced operations.
Conversely, the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that every dollar invested
in disaster preparedness yields savings of $4–$11 in disaster response, relief and
recovery.
For healthcare, however, there is much more at stake than revenue. Unlike some
other industries, in healthcare, being prepared can make the difference between a
life saved and a life lost. As injuries occur, having a place to set up to care for patients, as well as the ability to access someone’s medical history—their health problems, what medicines they’re taking and what they might be allergic to—can make all
the difference. It only takes a split second to save or lose a patient.
From setting up a satellite location for triage to shifting personnel to another facility, or being able to communicate with your team in a hurry when your systems are
down, the healthcare industry has unique business continuity needs.
Healthcare organizations that have a two-pronged strategy—a disaster recovery plan
and an incident command and control system—will be able to respond more efficiently, resulting in reduced patient disruption and more lives saved during a severe
weather event.
PREPARE AND TRAIN YOUR STAFF
STEP 1. Develop a business continuity plan- As you begin to develop your plan,
the first step is to make sure all critical departments are represented in meetings.
Radiology may have different needs from surgery, and geriatrics from pediatrics, etc.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
This white paper will outline the key considerations that are unique to hospitals
and healthcare providers that will help
in preparing for severe weather events,
including:
•
Business continuity/continuity of
operations
•
Developing an emergency
management team
•
Conducting a threat analysis
•
Disaster preparedness
•
Mobile disaster recovery/data
recovery
•
Incident command activation
•
Exercises, drills and testing
•
Collaboration with neighboring
healthcare facilities and regional
authorities.
By putting a solid plan in place now, your
facility will be prepared for any type of
weather situation that comes your way.
Photo: FEMA/Marty Bahamonde
CASE STUDY
REAL-WORLD LESSON FROM
SUPERSTORM SANDY:
Preparing Your Employees
Though many organizations were unharmed during
Superstorm Sandy, their employees could not, or
would not return to work for various reasons. Here
are some thoughts and suggestions on how to better
prepare our workforce for disaster, so they can return
to work in a timely manner.
•
Cross Train Employees. This will allow greater
depth in maintaining operations with limited staff
availability.
•
Encourage all employees and physicians to
have home and personal readiness plans that
include a way for contacting family members
to ensure their safety. Remember, regardless
of the disaster’s impact on your business, if an
employee’s family is displaced or affected by a
crisis, they will respond to their family first and
their employer second.
•
If a “work from home” scenario is part of your
plan, you must plan for the risks of power loss,
communication interruptions, inconsistent
internet access and the inevitable distractions
encountered when staff are working in a home
environment.
•
Assign everyone to a specific emergency team and assign each team a series of
tasks so that when you activate your plan, everyone will know what they need to
do and will automatically begin their assignments, for instance, creating a series
of employee or partner alerts or notifications, reviewing all operational capabilities, preparing messages, gathering supplies, etc.
If employees must be “in-office”, how will they
travel to work when public transportation and
fuel is cut off? Consider establishing carpool
protocols or hiring a transportation service. For
future events, consider storing fuel onsite for
distribution to key personnel. Be sure to follow
regulatory and accreditation guidelines for fuel
storage and distribution.
•
Next, maintain a complete contact list of all the healthcare providers and hospitals within and outside your immediate area. It’s important to know their size,
strengths, specialties, and members of their emergency team with all their current
information.
Consider using an internet-based communication portal where department managers and
employees have access to current information
and can make inquiries.
•
Provide multi-device communication alerts (e.g.
telephone, mobile phone, email, SMS) to provide
critical instructions and information. Be sure to
include two-way capabilities.
Critical emergency management personnel includes any department involved
in keeping your facility running, such as IT, engineering, the data center, in- and
out-patient medical care, laboratory and imaging, maintenance, security, food
services, HR, the emergency department and purchasing, to name a few. Don’t
assume you know who is important and who is not. Give every department and
center of excellence a voice.
Invite your chief partners, suppliers and representatives from the regional emergency management coalitions into these meetings so that everyone understands
their responsibility in keeping your hospital or healthcare facility up and running
during a weather crisis. For instance, your oxygen supplier may need to call an
alternate distributor. Meanwhile, if you’re taking in patients from another hospital
10 miles away, the regional Emergency Operations Center (EOC) needs to be
able to identify or clear a route from their facility to yours.
“Very often, someone is left out of the planning process simply because no one
thought to invite them,” says Bob Boyd, CEO of Agility Recovery Solutions. “It’s
critical that everyone knows what their responsibilities are during a severe weather event and that the team has thoroughly practiced every potential situation
together.”
Your emergency management coordinator should meet at least once or twice a
year with his or her peers from the other facilities rotating at each one’s location
to discuss a joint or regional emergency preparedness plan. Potential disaster
outcomes should be discussed, and drills or exercises practiced at least semiannually with all teams.
STEP 2. Conduct a threat analysis - Are you located in tornado alley? A flood
zone? On average, how many hurricanes does your town get in a five-year
period? Make a list of every possible weather-related event that has or could
Photo: FEMA/George Armstrong
Joplin, MO, 2011
occur. Consider the likelihood of new situations. For instance, hospitals and healthcare
facilities within a certain number of miles of Dallas should consider the possibility of
another ice storm in their future, even if they were not affected by the one in February
2012. Remember that not all weather-related events can be predicted.
During a threat analysis, discuss each type and level of threat separately to determine
how your staff and capabilities might be affected. Evaluate what resources and funding
you would need to restore critical functions if they went down, or if that is not possible,
what you would need to replicate them in a mobile facility, partner location or other
alternate care site. If your hospital has a specialty, such as a neonatal ICU, be sure to
include in your assessment where the next nearest facility is whose specialty is equivalent to yours and how patients will be transported.
Your threat analysis should be conducted at least annually and following every exercise or real-life incident.
Photo: FEMA/Win Henderson
STEP 3. Be ready at all times - Evacuation orders, safety and health hazards, or
damaged infrastructures may prevent employees from reporting to assigned locations in a timely manner. Identify alternative, prioritized gathering places and contact
arrangements for employees to meet after a disaster. In addition, consider the credentials employees will need for gaining access into a disaster area, as authorities may
restrict entry.
Divide your contact list or notifications by department leaders ahead of time, so everyone knows who will receive alerts without needing to be told, and can simply shift into
action once your emergency plan has been activated.
Have emergency “go” bags prepared with everything you would need to respond or
recover from a disaster. Include such things as:
•
spare cell phones
•
cash (ATMs don’t work in a power outage)
•
pens and paper
•
your insurance policy and insurance phone number so you can review your
coverage and report your damage
•
any paper forms you may need should your systems be offline
•
your employee and partner contact list
•
any prescribed medications
•
an extra pair of glasses
•
a thumb drive with emergency management policies, protocols and plans
•
solar cell phone and laptop chargers
•
water
•
batteries
Photo: FEMA News Photo
As an alternative to interrupted cell phone and landlines, consider two-way radios for
communication and battery-operated transistor radios for staying informed.
A separate patient-care go bag (or emergency vehicle) should have everything you
need to perform field emergency care.
STEP 4. Have a recovery plan - Most healthcare organizations are not prepared
for the long recovery time necessary to restore patient care services and business
operations following a significant weather-related event. When your facility has been
rendered unusable, you need to be back up and running as quickly as possible. In your
situation, lives depend on it.
Be sure to include the potential use of mobile command centers or alternate worksites
where, desks, wireless Internet, telephones and computers are immediately available.
Photo: FEMA/Jocelyn Augustino
CASE STUDY
COMMUNITY COLLABORATION:
Atlanta Hospitals Coordinate
a Joint Crisis Response Effort
In March 2008, 45 tornadoes struck the eastern Alabama and Carolina coast within a 24-hour period,
causing heavy damage in the Metropolitan Atlanta
area. Weather predictions were mild until just minutes before the tornado actually struck the city.
Within Atlanta, there were two large sporting events
underway; the Southeastern Conference basketball
tournament between Mississippi State and Alabama at the Georgia Dome, and the Atlanta Hawks
were playing the Los Angeles Clippers at nearby
Philips Arena. Fortunately, the tournament went
into overtime causing a short delay that prevented
spectators from being caught in the path of the
tornado and potentially saving hundreds of lives.
Several Atlanta hospitals were experiencing direct
tornado damage, and simultaneously receiving
patients as a result of the storm, including some in
critical condition. Fortunately, all the hospitals were
linked via an internet-based communication portal.
This enabled the emergency managers to coordinate their response and resource needs among all
area hospitals, as well as keeping staff informed
from home.
The situational awareness improvements through
broad notifications and a central communication
portal allowed affected facilities to address their
damages while simultaneously accepting critical
patients. Despite having little to no warning, these
hospitals were able to act quickly and cohesively
respond.
Photo: FEMA/Win Henderson
Turn to your data back-up facility to access critical patient records. In choosing a
data backup facility, be sure that it is far enough away to have separate weather
patterns.
COLLABORATE WITH NEIGHBORING
HEALTHCARE FACILITIES
We’ve all seen them … those disaster exercises where a town and all its hospital
and emergency personnel—doctors, nurses, firefighters and police, replete with
moulaged actors playing the part of the injured parties—come together to practice
potential disasters and enact their response. These are tremendously helpful for
hospital and healthcare staff that have to work in unison during a crisis situation.
These types of practices will help your staff and community responders save more
lives more quickly during a real-life situation.
Such collaborative planning allows each member of your team and those of your
partner healthcare facilities to gain critically important experience working seamlessly within and across groups they don’t interact with on a daily basis. Everyone gets
a chance to practice their role and see how they respond together in a high-stress
environment. Notice the emphasis on the word “together.”
Conduct a different exercise within the community at least annually and follow each
exercise with an after-action meeting or “hot wash” in which the team discusses
what worked and what didn’t, and how response time, communication, emergency
service and the overall process can be improved. Be sure to include a discussion
about the long-term recovery requirements necessary to restore essential services.
As an example, in Tampa, Florida, representatives from Pinellas County and Hillsborough County get together regularly to discuss events from the previous hurricane season in which they shared resources, and hold collaborative workshops to
prepare for the next hurricane season.
Their Workbook for Human Services Continuity of Operations Planning lists five
cooperative tasks their community partners must do:
1. Prioritize essential functions
4. Protect vital records and databases
2. Review insurance coverage 5. Conduct and inventory
3. Develop a communications plan
Collaboration between the public and private sector is also vital, particularly in
regions where large organizations have a significant community presence, such as
universities, sports arenas, corporations, retailers, banks and realtors. Not only do
organizations such as these have tremendous re- sources, but their level of influence
and support spreads both wide and deep.
6 STEPS TO TAKE TO ENSURE
A SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATION:
A corporation may be able to fund much needed mobile or back-up equipment for a
local hospital; a university might be able to temporarily house and feed physicians,
nurses and other emergency personnel; and a sports center might be able to provide
temporary triage and office space, as in the case of Mercy Hospital in Joplin, Missouri.
1. Know how critical services or service lines
will be impacted by hazard-specific incidents. This should include how many hours
of back-up power, water or other resources
are available in and outside of the impacted
area.
Finally, consider building a patient data exchange with your hospital and healthcare
partners, or joining an existing one. Ten states are currently working together on a
data exchange so that if people shift to other states (such as what happened with
Hurricane Katrina) data can be shared across state lines. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin and West
Virginia are building an infrastructure that will help interstate connections remain up
and running during a multi-state power outage.
MOBILIZING THE HOSPITAL COMMAND CENTER
AND INCIDENT MANAGEMENT TEAMS
Communication is critical during a disaster situation. Yet communications systems are
often the first thing to fail when power goes down. Consider this scenario.
Hurricane Irene impacted states from North Carolina through New Hampshire, costing
nearly $10 billion in damages and killing more than 40 people. Several hospitals were
affected, including a large facility in coastal Maryland that had implemented a notification and communication portal to plan for coordinating response efforts.
2. Know each facility’s area of medical specialty or critical service lines.
3. Maintain and share the names and contact
information for each team partner, including
physicians and nurses.
4. Be notified when a critical emergency team
member is unavailable. Know who to alert
to fill that position as quickly as possible.
5. Map out emergency routes to each other’s
facilities, including alternate routes in case
of flooding or road damage.
6. Meet at least quarterly to conduct an annual
exercise.
On day one, the hospital Incident Commander activated their plan and mobilized their Incident Management Team. All team members
received notification alerts to download and begin tracking their activities using their position-specific Job Action Sheets. In addition, a notification was sent to hospital administrators informing them the Command Center had been activated.
Staff and physicians from several departments joined electronically to coordinate shift-scheduling, employee lodging, and meal distribution,
and provide updated transportation information. By midday, facility and departmental status reports were being posted and kept the entire
facility informed of current activities.
When power was lost, the portal was used to communicate important information regarding generator power limitations. This allowed for
safer use of red plug outlets and biomedical equipment. When shift changes occurred, continuity was maintained by listing new staff assignments and providing contact information for on and off-duty personnel.
Throughout the incident, multi-modal notification and two-way, real-time message confirmation were used to direct individuals and resources. By using these capabilities, the hospital significantly
minimized the short- and long-term impact When the event was
over, notifications were used to announce that the Command
Center had been deactivated.
In addition, all activities and information were electronically
captured throughout the event and later reviewed during the
after-action meeting.
CONDUCT THOROUGH EXERCISES,
DRILLS AND TESTS
Testing is a critical component of business continuity planning
and emergency management. It provides information on how
long would it would take to get your systems up and running,
and what would be required to achieve that goal. Seeing
response and recovery in action would also determine whether
the timeframe meets your goals and compliance requirements,
and will uncover gaps in your plans so you can work to close
deficient or open actions.
Photo: Shannon Arledge
CASE STUDY
PERFECT STORM:
Lessons learned from the Kiowa
County Memorial Hospital
Kiowa County Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed hospital, is located in the quiet midwestern town of
Greensburg, Kansas. On May 4, 2007, this town
of just 1,200 people experienced an EF5 tornado.
It was 22 miles long and a one and a half miles
wide. It destroyed 95 percent of the town, including all emergency services and the hospital.
They would rebuild the hospital, but needed to
get back to servicing the community as quickly as
possible. After the disaster, the emergency team
met at the alternate site and began discussing
rebuild priorities. The first priority was setting up a
temporary medical facility. A mobile hospital was
delivered and was fully operational in just two
and half weeks, providing replacements for all the
healthcare services the townspeople needed.
Because of their location in tornado alley, prior
to the tornado, the emergency team had spent
significant time preparing for a storm. They printed
ID tags, determined the safest evacuation location
and created and drilled plans for moving patients.
They also developed a system for saving essential
items such as patient records, crash carts, med
carts and critical supplies. They had a plan for an
alternate meeting site for emergencies and developed a redundant communication system.
They had also spent significant time working with
the community on awareness, and this was a key
to the success of their emergency action plan.
Having participated in regional planning meetings
with the South Central Kansas Preparedness
Region (33 hospitals within a 19 county area)
and communicated regularly with emergency
management personnel and other local entities,
they knew how to access outside resources. They
discussed all evacuation procedures ahead of time
and everyone knew their roles and responsibilities.
Employees were empowered to make decisions
and all hands communicated with each other and
worked together.
Photo: FEMA/Greg Henshall
Some
key lessons learned include:
•
Know the NIMS structure
•
Practice religiously but be flexible and adaptable
•
Secure current, active records
•
Make sure electronic data is backed up and secure, and you know how
to access it from a remote location or different technology
•
Have duplicate name tags for access
•
Have a plan to replace employee licenses and IDs
•
Be careful which records you restore after the disaster
•
Have contacts in place for temporary storage, office space, continuing
medical care, bathroom and shower facilities
•
Evaluate your insurance regularly and know the cost to rebuild
•
Do you have business continuation insurance? If not, you should.
•
Arrange for a FEMA 101. Know how to activate FEMA resources.
•
Have a good system to maintain current inventory records
•
Keep accurate time records and purchase records after the event.
Document everything.
•
Collect multiple forms of staff contact information, including the contact
information of their family members.
•
Know your partners! Participate in community and regional training exercises. Be involved in community level planning to know what local and
regional resources are available.
•
Explore relationships with disaster recovery vendors or asset providers.
Consider regional partnering as regiona to achieve economies of scale.
Despite the devastation, Kiowa County Memorial Hospital’s disaster recovery
implementation and mobile hospital set-up happened within days of the storm,
thanks to extensive preplanning, communication and teamwork.
Your needs will change over time, so full-scale tests should be conducted annually.
Test all critical functions, particularly those that would be most vulnerable during a
weather-related event, including:
• Servers • PCs/Workstations • Network/Internet/Data Center
• Building Security • Phones/Communications • Supply Chain
• Workflow/Staff Procedures • Utilities/Medical Gases
• Back-up Generators
Some organizations phase their testing procedures, for instance, running a data
recovery test one month and network/Internet recovery another month.
Once complete, solicit input from your disaster recovery team, other departments
and outside experts, and plan to retest at a later date.
Who Should Participate: The testing team should include everyone on the emergency management team or those who are in charge of critical areas within the
hospital or healthcare facility.
These should include, but not be limited to:
• Emergency room • ICU • Surgery • In and out-patient care
• Security • Pediatrics/Geriatrics/Telemetry • Facilities • IT
• HR • Executive management • Public relations • Social services
• Other critical departments
CONCLUSION
Many weather experts anticipate that weather-related events are going to continue
to challenge communities across the U.S. Subsequently, hospitals and healthcare
facilities must be prepared in order to save lives and care for their patients under
even the most extreme circumstances.
With this in mind, there is a lot that can be done to ensure your organization is
prepared. Begin by developing internal plans that include response and continuity
capabilities from all critical departments. Then be partner with with other facilities
and emergency management organizations within and around your community
to enhance your plans, set mutual expectations and maximize community wide
lifesaving capability.
These critical partners can back up and replace your business operations, support
facility capability, provide communication assets and work closely with your with
your incident management team to get your facility up and running during and after
any crisis situation.
CASE STUDY
Testing Improves Response Time
Utah Hospital
A national healthcare organization used a satellite
location in Atlanta to test restoration of their head
office and IT operations. In the end, communication was seen as the backbone to speedy, efficient
recovery. The ambitious exercise was meant to
determine the realistic recovery timeframes for five
critical servers and a custom automated call distribution (ACD) phone solution.
The test revealed that they could not communicate
to their main network from their mobile unit and
needed to make a series of changes to their configurations to bring communications online. This is
typical when testing a satellite link for the first time.
Taking care of it during a test and storing the configuration details means that in an actual recovery
their system would be up and running much more
quickly.
The test also revealed the need for effective communication in determining priorities and objectives
among the on-site IT staff and off-site management. The individual departments involved in the
test were not used to working together as a team,
so time was spend encouraging them to think as a
whole when looking for solutions. Periodic conference calls with the recovery team and on-site and
off-site staff resolved discrepancies and paved the
way for a successful exercise.
In the end, everything came together and it was a
valuable experience. The outcomes of this exercise
are now an integral part of the facility’s business
continuity program, improving both their communication and their response.
Your staff, patients and community need to know they can depend on you when
you’re needed most. Following these guidelines and building partnerships with key
recovery and communication partners, will ensure that you will always be there
for them.
Photo: FEMA/Derek Jensen
Photo: FEMA/Shannon Arledge
for
Photo: FEMA/Shannon Arledge
CASE STUDY
The 10 Costliest Natural Disasters
By Total Losses (2012)
1. SUPERSTORM SANDY
Location: U.S (6 states), Caribb., Canada
Time Period: Oct. 24-31
Cost in Billions: $65
Fatalities: 210
2. DROUGHT, HEAT WAVE
Location: Midwest
Time Period: June - September
Cost in Billions: $20
Fatalities: 100
3. EARTHQUAKE
Location: Italy
Time Period: May 25 - 29
Cost in Billions: $16
Fatalities: 18
4. FLOODS
Location: China
Time Period: July 21 - 24
Cost in Billions: $8
Fatalities: 151
Snow
in the
South Sends A Children’s Hospital Into
Incident Command Action
In early 2011, a snowstorm fell on Dallas. In an area known for mild winter weather, conditions quickly deteriorated, causing significant weather-related disruptions
throughout the region. To compound the challenges, the city and surrounding areas
were filled with out-of-town visitors arriving for Super Bowl Sunday, and more snow
and ice were predicted throughout the weekend.
As a precaution, an area hospital’s Incident Commander sent a series of notifications
tasking key staff to join a daily status conference call. In addition, the hospital activated a virtual command center and began assigning hospital incident management
team members to their incident command roles. Each team member received a notification that included their respective Job Action Sheet.
Command Staff and Section Chiefs were able to coordinate their team’s efforts and
activities. Logistics tracked agreements with key suppliers and ordered additional
deliveries of pharmaceuticals and other resources to last throughout the storm. Planning posted Staffing Pool rosters, including weather-related call-outs to organize shift
support and coordinated staff lodging to accommodate extra shifts and avoid potentially dangerous commutes. Within Operations, a loss of heat in one of the towers required immediate action and updates for restoring the HVAC system. In the Finance
Section, payments were coordinated to support all of the supplemental expenses.
5. STORM, TORNADOES
Location: 6 states
Time Period: March 2 - 4
Cost in Billions: $5
Fatalities: 41
6. SEVERE STORM
Location: 4 states
Time Period: April 28 - 29
Cost in Billions: $4.6
Fatalities: 1
7. SEVERE STORM
Location: 12 states
Time Period: June 28 - July 2
Cost in Billions: $4
Fatalities: 18
8. SEVERE STORM, HAILSTORM
Location: 6 states
Time Period: May 25 - 30
Cost in Billions: $3.4
Fatalities: 0
9. FLOODS, LANDSLIDES
Location: China
Time Period: May 10 - 24
Cost in Billions: $2.5
Fatalities: 127
10. FLOODS
Location: Pakistan
Time Period: September 3 - 27
Cost in Billions: $2.5
Fatalities: 455
Source: © 2013 Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE
Photo: FEMA/Marty Bahamonde
Throughout the event, various departments posted status updates. Logistics coordinated snow/ice removal and frequently reviewed and reported any potential patient
safety issues. Operations communicated an unusual spike of sick children arriving in
the ED and a similar spike in staff absenteeism due to flu-related symptoms. In addition, community updates such as school and university closures and road conditions
were posted.
Having a central point of information throughout the snowstorm allowed the hospital
to list current patient census, staffing instructions, open/closed issues and meeting
minutes. By Super Bowl Sunday, improved weather allowed the facility to begin
demobilizing weather-related response teams and resume its original Super Bowl
staffing plans. Coordination with local hospitals and regional authorities continued
and in the following days, information posted was reviewed and included in their after
action report and improvement plan.
RESOURCES
10-Point Incident-Ready Checklist online
www.liveprocess.com
A Workbook for Human Services Continuity of Operations Planning
& Disaster Recovery
http://tampabayhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/COOPWorkbook-May2007version1.pdf
10-Point Incident-Ready
Communication Checklist
1. There should be no limits on the number or type of
communications
2. Responders need immediate feedback
3. Communications must be recorded
Disaster Recovery for the Healthcare Field
http://www2.agilityrecovery.com/healthcare
4. Communications must be able to be sent and received
from any location
Critical Decisions for Earthquake Safety in Hospitals
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/plan/prevent/rms/396/fema396_a.pdf
5. Communications should improve situational awareness
National Incident Management Systems Implementation Activities
for Hospitals and Healthcare Systems
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/imp_hos.pdf
Superstorm Sandy: Lessons Learned
http://blog.agilityrecovery.com/0513sl01--sandy-lessons-learned
Sandy forces hospitals to rethink disaster planning
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/07/sandy-forces-hospitals-torethink-disaster-planning/1690477/
Tampa Bay Initiative Disaster Preparedness Resources
http://tampabayhealth.org/initiatives/emergency-and-disaster-preparedness/
6. The communication system should include or complement
internal code calling
7. Contact information should be frequently updated and
always available
8. Communication systems and processes should be used
daily and tested regularly
9. Notifications should be able to be sent and received by
individuals, departments, and/or organizations
10. Communications for hazard or role-specific information
is essential
Tornado Preparedness Checklist for Hospitals
Email [email protected] to request document
ABOUT AGILITY RECOVERY SOLUTIONS
ABOUT LIVEPROCESS
Agility Recovery Solutions is a former division of GE with 24 years
of disaster recovery and business continuity experience. Agility
provides comprehensive, packaged recovery solutions and testing
options to healthcare organizations across the United States and
Canada. Agility’s ReadySuite disaster recovery solution received
the exclusive endorsement of the American Hospital Association.
ReadySuite is a collection of services that provide power, space,
technology and connectivity in the event of a disaster or major
disruption.
LiveProcess helps hospitals minimize disruptions to patient care.
Every day healthcare organizations must deal with situations that
take staff away from caring for patients. LiveProcess HealthCORe
enables organizations to plan and prepare for all types of situations, mobilize staff and resources, coordinate efforts while keeping everyone informed and track activities in realtime.
For more information about Agility, call 866-364-9696 or visit
http://www2.agilityrecovery.com/healthcare.
Headquartered in Burlington, MA, LiveProcess was started with a
vision of transforming healthcare by improving clinical and operational resilence in the face of everyday situations. LiveProcess
has earned the trust and business of 429 healthcare organizations in 46 states and in eight countries.
For more information about LiveProcess, call 888-400-CORE
(2673) or visit www.liveprocess.com.
© 2014 LiveProcess, Inc. is a registered trademarks of LiveProcess Corporation. All other
trademarks listed in this document are the property of their respective owners.