With hurricane season starting in June and alarm bells being rung on the rise in global temperatures, it has never been more crucial for healthcare organizations to focus on their emergency preparedness and management plans. This is one area where accreditation can help, says Kurt Patton...
Natural disasters are not going away any time soon—and the days of practicing casualty events and unscheduled utility disruptions as standalone events are probably gone forever.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Combined Heat and Power program is an energy solution for hospitals, providing efficient and continuous power that safeguards critical life support systems during grid outages. With the increasing frequency of severe weather events in the U.S...
Stress is a natural response that everyone deals with, but being able to manage it during a laboratory emergency can make all the difference in how things turn out. It’s not wrong to feel stress under pressure, and there are ways to cope with your stress response before, during, and after a...
One of the truisms of managing healthcare in current climes and times is the importance of creating environments that can withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and we’ve certainly had more than our share of those). In looking back at the last five or so years, it is very clear...
Having bopped around a fair amount of the nation over the last 6 months or so, I heard a fair number of stories from folks working in healthcare of the many and varied travails they faced during the winter months as whatever powers one might attribute to nature wandered very far afield. Folks...
The official start of hurricane season is almost here. Hurricanes, especially the monster storms, have taught American hospitals some big lessons, and if you haven’t put those lessons into your resiliency plan, then you’re behind the game. For an example, just look to New Orleans.
As CMS begins focusing more on emergency preparedness planning, review your hospital’s plans to ensure they include how the facility will handle a patient surge during civic unrest. Preparation for civic unrest unfortunately must be a part of any medical facility’s emergency planning, say...
There is not one hospital in the United States that is immune from disasters, whether caused by internal system failures or events externally directed at them and the communities they serve. Yet many of the nation’s healthcare organizations make preparedness a low priority and fail to build the...
Well, not strictly speaking—I’m pretty sure we’ve been working on preparedness in the ambulatory care settings for a while now. I suspect that this is more of a recalibration to ensure that all applicable elements of the CMS Emergency Preparedness Final Rule are clearly accounted for in all the...
