Hospital fire reveals several truths about emergency preparedness

There’s an update on a fire at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT, in this week’s issue of our free sister e-newsletter, Emergency Management Alert.

As a consultant, I frequently ask folks what kind of scenarios they are using to comply with EM.03.01.03, EP 3, which mandates an emergency response exercise, including an escalating scenario in which the hospital is unable to be supported by the local community.

One of the truisms I’ve observed over time is that this particular requirement is very near impossible to anticipate because the likelihood of such an event actually occurring is very, very small.

Now, I suspect that the events at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital would be acceptable as an escalating event — can you imagine a much more stressful set of circumstances than what occurred? I would tend to think not, but I know I’ll hear from you if you have some experiences to share.

At any rate, one of the other truisms I’ve noted is that power, both normal and emergency, is frequently the tipping point when it comes to escalating events — especially if you do not have absolutely solid means of supplying HVAC capacity.

Losing HVAC has a tendency to accelerate the sustainability clock to breakneck speed. How long can you go with out A/C in the summer or heating in the winter? This all goes back to The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Alert #37 and its focus on emergency power capacity. How many of you know what HVAC elements will work if you lose normal power? Emergency power?

One could argue that the events at Lawrence & Memorial could have been exercised as a function of the Sentinel Event Alert, with perhaps fewer surprises, perhaps not. But this should serve as a wake-up call to every environment of care and emergency management committee that doesn’t have a very clear sense of what’s at stake in events like this, doesn’t have an identified mitigation strategy, and hasn’t shared the magnitude of the impact with the rest of the organization, including hospital leadership.

Clearly everyone can’t run right out and upgrade their electrical systems to provide additional capacity and flexibility, but you really ought to know whether you need to.