Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
has many aspects, internal communication among
staff, communications with the hospital command
center, communications with vendors and parts
suppliers, communications with families and other
loved ones.
Typically hospitals have some form on internal
radio communications system. The larger and more
complex the campus, the more complex the radio
system. Is Clinical Engineering part of this radio
system? Are radios provided to Clinical Engi-
neering staff for immediate use in a disaster? Are
they used on a routine (daily) basis for internal
communications so staff is aware of use?
Does the radio system assigned to the Clinical
Engineering department have ability to communi-
cate with the system used by the Facilities Engi-
neering Department for coordination? With the
hospital command center?
Frequently telephone communications
(including cellular phone) will fail in a crisis.
If not immediately, then batteries will fail and
there will be a host of other problems. It is
important that communications planning is not
based solely on cellular phones as means of back
up communications. Planning should include what
to do if the hospital telephones fail. Sometimes a
roll of quarters and the pay phones in the lobby
are the only telephone communications hospitals
have available.
Most vendors use toll free 800 numbers. These
numbers may fail in a crisis. What is the direct
non-800 number to access vendors? What is
the vendor's telephone outage plan? What is
the vendor's disaster plan? How does vendor
communicate with field service representatives in
a disaster? Is there a standardized plan where
field service representatives respond to specific
high acuity hospitals to get dispatched to other
locations by the hospitals? Or, is there no plan
at all—unfortunately this has typically been the
experience.
Ideally any service contract should include
complete documentation on the vendors' disaster
response, contingency, and business resumption
plan. This plan must include actions for a disaster
in the hospital location, as well as a disaster at
the vendors corporate headquarters or telephone
answering location. Informing the vendor that in
the event of a major catastrophe, you want a
service technician to immediately respond to the
hospital and then practice contacting vendor and
requesting emergency disaster response during
your disaster drills will significantly improve
the vendor's understanding. Further, home phone
numbers of local service technicians, managers
and directors—solely for emergency purposes—
have significant value and create additional under-
standing and communication among the vendor
and hospital community.
There are some questions for communications
planning:
Who are you going to call?
How do you contact them 24 by 7?
How do you contact them if no telephones?
What do you do if you can not locate them?
Most of us use the answers to the top two questions
routinely to contact field service representatives.
We need to build on these plans to assure that the
vendor's plans are as resilient as possible.
16.5 Departmental Staff Care
How does staff assure that family members are
OK? Typically staff will function much more effi-
ciently in a disaster situation once they are aware
that their immediate loved ones are OK. How is this
done? Does the hospital sponsor emergency plan-
ning events for families? Is information provided
as part of orientation? Is the family disaster plan
reviewed and taken into account during the hospital
drills? How does one prepare her family for a hurri-
cane, knowing she will be in the hospital during
the event? Are plans made to include sheltering of
families during disaster plans?
There are no easy answers, but a little family
planning goes a long way. Seattle is separated by
bridges. Failure of the bridges due to high winds,
earthquake or terrorist event is possible. My wife
works on one side of the bridge, I on the other.
It is not much, but in event of a crisis, we were
both responsible for the children on the side of the
water we were on. As I worked at the hospital, I
knew there would be lights, etc., and a safe haven
