JCAHO issues Alert for power failures
JCAHO issues Alert for power failures
The 2001 floods in Houston. The 2003 blackout in the Northeast. Hurricanes in the Southeast.
These disasters showed how severely clinical operations can be affected in health care organizations that lose their electrical power, and they have led the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to issue a Sentinel Event Alert. The Alert urges health care organizations to pay special attention to how emergency power systems can fail and recommends specific steps to keep patients safe in a disaster or other event that knocks out the organization's electrical power.
To reduce risks to patients created by power failures, the Joint Commission recommends that health care organizations take the following specific steps:
- Match the critical equipment and systems needed in an extended emergency against the equipment and systems actually on the emergency power system.
- Inventory emergency power systems and the loads they serve.
- Provide training for and test those who operate and maintain the emergency power supply system.
- Ensure that generator fuel is available and usable.
- Ensure that the organization management and clinical leaders know how long emergency power will be available and what locations within the facility will and will not have emergency power in the event of an electrical outage.
- Establish contingency plans for doctors and other caregivers to follow during losses of electrical power.
Joseph Cappiello, the Joint Commission's vice president of accreditation field operations, says he first witnessed how electric power failure can affect patient care and safety during Tropical Storm Alison in Houston in 2001. "Memorial Hermann was impacted to the point where they had to evacuate without power," he recalls. "They had to carry people down the stairs strapped to backboards in the dark, carrying flashlights, and I think transported 30-40 ventilator-dependent patients."
For EDs, he notes, loss of power means loss of lights, loss of ventilators, and lack of power for portable X-rays and ultrasound machines. "In addition, you have to work in a chaotic environment when the lights go out, and the amount of calls and visits go up dramatically," Cappiello says.
Be proactive
Because their departments can be affected so severely, ED managers must take a proactive stance in seeing that the Joint Commission's recommendations are followed in their facilities, says Cappiello.
One specific area of concentration should be the recommendation of matching critical systems and equipment, he says. When the Northeast was hit with a blackout several years ago, he says, it was assumed that critical equipment such as ventilators were hooked up to the backup system, but often they weren't. ED managers should review the backup system, identify critical equipment, and make sure all of it is in the backup power plan, he advises.
"The ED manager need not do that in isolation, however," he adds. "This is an issue they should bring up at meetings of the emergency preparedness committee, and take the initiative to recommend this is checked once a year."
Contingency plans also are critical, he continues. For example, notes Cappiello, many hospitals have boxes of flashlights available for use during power outages, but that may not be the best way to go. "It's not an easy thing to provide patient care with one hand, or start an IV, while holding a flashlight," he notes. "The ED manager should think about other emergency lighting — something like headband lamps or miner lamps — and have them available."
These disasters showed how severely clinical operations can be affected in health care organizations that lose their electrical power, and they have led the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to issue a Sentinel Event Alert.Subscribe Now for Access
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