BACK IN SEPTEMBER HURRICANE IRMA struck south Florida.
It knocked out power to many, including the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. The center is located directly across the street from a fully staffed regional Level 1 trauma center (Memorial Regional). The hospital, preparing for the storm, sent as many patients home as medically feasible; it had empty beds.
The loss of power ended up causing a number of residents to die unnecessarily.
Rep. Wasserman -Schultz, in whose district the facilities are located, and Rep. Frederica Wilson, who represents a Dade County district, each rushed to propose legislation to assure no more nursing home deaths would occur due to lack of electrical power.
Neither politico knows what she’s talking about.
THIS SCRIVENER was for many years an Enterprise Risk Management practitioner. I worked on plans for private industry, and for city and state governments.
Wasserman-Schultz and Wilson, who apparently know nothing about risk management but do practice knee jerk reactions, immediately demanded that legislation be passed that would require nursing homes and similar facilities to have standby power generators with sufficient fuel to operate for 90 hours.
Both Wasserman-Schultz and Wilson – despite being within a few miles of each other – independently proposed basically the same thing. There was a Wilson bill and a Wasserman-Schultz bill.
NEITHER BILL ADDRESSED THE REAL ISSUES
Over the years I have gained some experience with electric generators. As a young airman in Orlando FL, I remember sticking fuel tanks and confirming batteries were charged so I would not have to pull a rope – much like a lawn mower – to get the generators working. The generators – 13 of them – had to work; they were attached to 13 hospital wards, all of which were in use.
Later I worked for a manufacturing facility that had to have power 24/7/365 to maintain the production line.
Even later, I worked for an international shipping company that had to have power in order to maintain its database of in-transit containers. If the database was not up to date, Customs would fine the company … heavily.
In each case, there were policies and procedures (P&Ps) in place to assure
- the generators had full fuel tanks
the fuel was free of water
the generators would start (push button starter or pull cord)
The generators were run for at least an hour once a month. When initially installed, they were run for 24 hours under full load.
The procedures required to conform to the policies were fully documented.
- Procedure
Date
Person performing the procedure
Results
It makes no difference if a giant generator is sitting right outside the back door – not too close, the start-up noise could give an elderly person a heart attack – if the fuel is insufficient or bad, if it won’t start – automatically with a power outage or manually with a start button or pull rope – or if the machine gives out or burns up after “n” hours of operation.
BEYOND GENERATORS
In addition to P&Ps for power supplies, there also must be P&Ps to evacuate residents.
- Know what resources have available space and trained personnel
Know how to move the residents – or, know people who have the expertise
Know when to move the residents; moving sick people is a “worst case” event
Know what is needed to relocate residents – ambulances, wheelchairs, etc.
The first needs to be determined as soon as the possibility of relocation is identified. For Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, that moment came when the hurricane was forecast to hit south Florida; never mind where in south Florida. The risk, no matter how small, of the storm making a direct hit was sufficient reason to activate the risk management plan.
There is a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Pinellas County. Pinellas is a peninsula on a peninsula; it sticks out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Once a year, every year, the hospital administration “rounds up” local volunteers to practice evacuation techniques. Using volunteers eliminates the need to move real patients, Some volunteers are dressed up with moulages (fake, albeit real looking wounds). Doctors, nurses, aides, and technicians all are involved in the exercise; the local press covers the exercise as well.
BOTTOM LINE
The bills proposed by the two south Florida representatives will not save any lives and it will run into strenuous objections by the nursing home lobby, sufficient to either kill the bills or to drag out the process until another hurricane season has passed.
This simply is a case of people with a little power who don’t know what they are doing other than perhaps trying to grab headlines.
If the representatives wanted to do something useful, their bills should consider the foregoing and include a requirement – the absence of which would terminate Medicare, Medicaid, and other state and federal funding – that the plan be exercised at least once a year.
For an experienced planner, what is proposed here is just good common sense, and good business sense, too.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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