Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Emergencies also may be entirely institution-
based (e.g., a small fire in the data center, a
burst pipe in the emergency department, or a
hospital-wide labor strike). Regardless of whether
emergencies are external or internal to the orga-
nization, such events may impair healthcare oper-
ations and thereby trigger the implementation of
a hospital's emergency management plan and its
Incident Command Structure (ICS) or Hospital
Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS)
4
response.
For example, Tropical Storm Allison created
such an emergency situation for the Memorial
Hermann Healthcare System in June 2001, when
downtown Houston, TX, and the hospital endured
more than twenty inches of rain in a three-
day period. The flooding water overwhelmed
precautions that had been designed to withstand
a 100-year flood; destroyed a pathology labo-
ratory; dispersed medical waste and biohazards;
submerged mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
systems; damaged communication systems; and
required the complete evacuation of the Memo-
rial Hermann Hospital and the Memorial Hermann
Children's Hospital.
5
And, of course, all Americans remember
the heroism and professionalism exhibited by
healthcare workers in the hours and days after
the terrorist attacks in New York, NY, and
Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Or
consider the example of the North York General
Hospital in Toronto, Canada, which experienced
a different emergency situation during May and
August of 2003, when an outbreak of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) occurred in
Figure A.1
(JCAHO).
3
Healthcare providers experience unex-
pected crises in different contexts, ranging from
events where no essential hospital services are
compromised to a disaster that affects all hospital
operations on both large and small scales.
Emergency events may be externally triggered
(e.g., natural disasters; outbreaks of new, deadly
diseases; or vicious acts of terrorism) that result
in a massive demand on a healthcare system.
3
See, e.g.
, Joint Comm'n on Accreditation of Healthcare Orgs., Hospital Accreditation Standards (HAS) Standards
EC4.10, EC4.20 (2004) (providing a detailed checklist of required activities and requiring a hospital to conduct drills regularly to test
emergency management).
Cf
. National Fire Protection Ass'n, Standard 1600 on Disaster/Emergency Management and
Business Continuity Programs ยงยง 1112 (2004) (establishing a standard common set of criteria for assessing and implementing
emergency and disaster management),
available at
www.nfpa.org/PDF/nfpa1600.pdf (last visited Sept. 13, 2004).
4
See
North Carolina Hosp. Ass'n, Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (1992) (discussing both the Incident
Command System and Hospital Emergency Incident Command System disaster response plans).
5
Juanita F. Romans,
Tropical Storm Allison: The Houston Flood of June 9th, 2001
,6The Internet Journal of Rescue
and Disaster Medicine (2002),
at
www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath
=
journals/ijeicm/vol6n1/coo.xml (last visited Sept.
14, 2004).
