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Britney Surge taxes LA emergency services

Emergency Management Alert, February 12, 2008

Last month, when Britney Spears was committed to a mental health facility, she required the following to ease her transport from her Mulholland Drive home to the UCLA Medical Center:

 One dozen Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) motorcycles and squad cars
 One helicopter
 The services of the LAPD's crisis response support unit
 One ambulance

The price tag for LA taxpayers: $25,000, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Despite its magnitude, there was a plan in place for Britney Surge. In fact, in preparing for such--er, disasters--emergency managers have more than a few rules to call upon, from such agencies as The Joint Commission, CMS, and other agencies.

Thomas Huser, MS, CHSP, author of The Environment of Care: A Compliance Guide to The Joint Commission's Management Plans, 3rd Edition (HCPro, 2008), points out that a Britney Surge would fall under The Joint Commission environment of care standard EC.2.10, EP 9, which says that the facility must have a process in place, i.e. a written security plan, to identify and handle VIPs and members of the media.

And, in HCPro's new CD-ROM product, Hospital Safety Crosswalk: Comparing Environment of Care, CMS, and OSHA Requirements, author Steve MacArthur marks the fine line between use of restraints in healthcare as opposed to law enforcement: "CMS does not allow the use of weapons to restrain patients. Weapons include pepper spray, mace, nightsticks, Tasers, cattle prods, stun guns, pistols, and other similar equipment, according to the agency's interpretive guidelines to section 482.13(f) in its State Operations Manual: 'The use of weapons by security staff is considered as a law enforcement use and not a healthcare intervention. CMS does not approve the use of weapons by any hospital staff as a means of subduing a patient to place that patient in patient restraint/seclusion.' "

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