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Tip: Designate staff members to relocate items during an alarm

EHR Connection, July 2, 2007

If a workstation on wheels (WOW) is in a corridor and a fire alarm goes off, you need to be sure that your staff members know how to react. Safety committees should review their policies to relocate this equipment, says Michael Crowley, PE, senior vice president and engineering manager at Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc., in Houston.

Make sure the policy establishes the following:

• Who's in charge of moving WOWs out of the way
• Where staff members should put the computers
• Related training and drills

When you conduct drills, make sure to document how well staff members relocate WOWs, Crowley says.

It makes sense to simply assign the person who's using a WOW to be in charge of managing it during evacuations or fire drills, he adds.

"It used to be that they'd have one of these computers for every three or four patients," Crowley says. "Now they're assigning the computer to one nurse, and it's the nurse's problem [during a drill]."

Regulators don't necessarily care who moves WOWs, crash carts, linen wagons, food service carts, or whatever else is sitting in the hallways--as long as someone moves them when the alarm goes off, he says.

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