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Mac’s Safety Space: ’Tis the season for more emergency management goodness

Hospital Safety Insider, March 1, 2018

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Editor's note: This originally appeared on HCPro's Mac's Safety Space blog.

Recognizing the somewhat hyperbolic nature of this week’s headline (you need only listen to current news/weather feeds to be able to determine that emergencies are not quite as seasonal as perhaps they once were…), I did want to share one more emergency management-related nugget with you (I do try to mix things up, but until I start seeing some “hard” survey results — or some regulatory panjandrum makes some sort of announcement, I’m going to keep seeding this space with various and sundry bits of stuff), this coming to us from the left coast, aka California.

While I have little doubt that you Californians in the audience are familiar with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH — four scary letters, though perhaps not as scary as OSHPD for the facilities folks in Cali) requirements for workplace emergency plans (which is highlighted in this month’s CDPH Occupational Health Watch), I think that there might well be some useful information for folks in other parts of the country (I have found, over some few years of experience, that regulatory tsunamis can start in California and find their way to all manner of locales). To be honest (and why else would we be here?), the plan elements required (or at least the ones the surveyors want to see) by the usual regulatorily-inclined suspects, are frequently not quite as useful from an operational preparedness/mitigation/response/recovery standpoint (they provide a useful structure for the aforementioned quartet, but when it comes down to doing the do, again, sometimes not so much).

At any rate, the Cal/OSHA Emergency Action Plan requirements, provide (at least in my mind — feel free to disagree) a good basic sense of the pieces to have in place that are not necessarily as patient-focused. When the fecal matters starts impacting the rapidly rotation turbine blades, it’s important to have a structure in place that addresses the employee aspect, particularly for those of you with offsite non-clinical operations (billing, finance, HR, etc.: a lot of folks don’t have enough space at the main campus for all the moving pieces that constitute a healthcare organization). So, here’s the California stuff (and please feel free to share any good stuff your state might have on the books — this is all about getting prepared and staying prepared — every little bit helps):

(b) Elements. The following elements, at a minimum, shall be included in the plan:

(1) Procedures for emergency evacuation, including type of evacuation and exit route assignments;

(2) Procedures to be followed by employees who remain to operate critical plant operations before they evacuate;

(3) Procedures to account for all employees after emergency evacuation has been completed;

(4) Procedures to be followed by employees performing rescue or medical duties;

(5) The preferred means of reporting fires and other emergencies; and

(6) Names or regular job titles of persons or departments who can be contacted for further information or explanation of duties under the plan.

(c) Alarm System.

(1) The employer shall establish an employee alarm system which complies with Article 165 (link to that info here).

(2) If the employee alarm system is used for alerting fire brigade members, or for other purposes, a distinctive signal for each purpose shall be used.

(d) Evacuation. The employer shall establish in the emergency action plan the types of evacuation to be used in emergency circumstances.

(e) Training.

(1) Before implementing the emergency action plan, the employer shall designate and train a sufficient number of persons to assist in the safe and orderly emergency evacuation of employees.

(2) The employer shall advise each employee of his/her responsibility under the plan at the following times:

(A) Initially when the plan is developed,

(B) Whenever the employee’s responsibilities or designated actions under the plan change, and

(C) Whenever the plan is changed.

(3) The employer shall review with each employee upon initial assignment those parts of the plan which the employee must know to protect the employee in the event of an emergency. The written plan shall be kept at the workplace and made available for employee review. For those employers with 10 or fewer employees the plan may be communicated orally to employees and the employer need not maintain a written plan.

I hope this provides you with some useful (and perhaps even thoughtful) information as we roll through emergency year 2018. I am hoping for a time of minimal impact for communities this year (I think we had just about enough last year), but the oddness of the weather patterns over the past couple of months gives me pause. (I live in the Boston area and Houston and its environs had snow before we did!)

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