Safety

Tip of the week: Communication methods during an emergency go beyond satellite phones and text messaging

Hospital Safety Connection, February 25, 2009

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

You often hear about the need to have redundant communication strategies for a community catastrophe, with the idea that regular and cell phone service may go down quickly. It’s important to think broadly in this regard and not trap yourself in a mindset of limited options.
 
See how many of these methods your emergency operations plan includes for backup communication:
  • Basic telephone systems
  • In-building wireless phone systems
  • Overhead announcement and paging systems
  • Nurse call system
  • Voice over Internet Protocol systems
  • Cell phones
  • Beepers and pocket pagers
  • Enterprise systems
  • BlackBerries and similar devices
  • Text messaging
  • Text-to-voice translation
  • Communication systems for the deaf and hearing impaired
  • Telephonic translation lines and services
  • Access control systems
  • Fax machines
  • Hospital television network systems
  • E-mail
  • Mass notification systems
  • Hospital electronic bulletin boards
  • Intranet message posting
  • Bed-tracking and facility status reporting systems
  • Electronic health record systems
  • Enterprise systems for networked hospitals
  • Resource and grant-asset tracking systems
  • Evacuee and disaster patient tracking systems
  • Emergency medical services communication systems
  • Emergency desktop and mobile handheld programmed radios
  • Communication with emergency operations centers
  • Public health monitoring and notification systems (syndromic surveillance systems, threat notification systems, outbreak management systems)
  • Satellite radio and communication systems
  • Ham radio systems
  • Human runners (the low-tech communication system if all else fails)
This tip comes from HCPro’s book, Emergency Management Coordinator’s Handbook for Hospitals.
 
 



Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

Most Popular

Related Articles