What to do about supplies, equipment post-disaster
What to do about supplies, equipment post-disaster
When your facility survives a disaster that includes flooding, you might have problems with your equipment even if water didn’t touch your devices, says Jim Keller, vice president of health technology evaluation and safety at ECRI, a nonprofit health services research agency in Plymouth Meeting, PA.
"Humidity could have affected its performance," he says. You may simply be able to dry out the equipment and have it work properly, Keller adds.
"The first step would be obtaining qualified resources to assess the operation of the devices," Keller says. Just as with new devices that have been transported to your facility, you need to have acceptance testing, he says.
Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, MS, had to re-sterilize all of its instruments and terminally clean all the ORs due to the loss of air conditioning and the humidity, reports Chris Rosenthal, RN, CNOR, patient care manager of the OR, central sterile processing, and anesthesia.
"The job of redoing all of the instruments was horrendous and was accomplished by incredible teamwork on the part of OR and the central sterile processing staff," Rosenthal says. "Everyone worked nearly around the clock for nearly three days to get everything back to normal."
East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, LA, lost generator power at one point due to the hurricane, says Judy Bauer, RN, CNOR, vice president of nursing for Perioperative and Women and Child Services. "It becomes like a rainforest in the OR when that happens."
They also had to re-sterilize equipment, and they had the sterilizers recertified to ensure they were performing correctly, Bauer says. Because people were not being allowed back into the area, the hospital had to obtain special permission for the people doing the recertification to be identified as medical workers and provided access to the hospital, she adds.
East Jefferson worked with FedEx and a local distributor to have medical supplies for the hospital shipped to a spot outside the city and then delivered to the hospital, she says. "There was no overnight, just overweek.’"
Resource
ECRI has established a free clearinghouse that provides a central resource for facilities affected by the hurricane to find information from manufacturers on medical devices, supplies, and services. Information includes donated products, special lease programs, and hurricane relief contact persons. The site included information on infusion pumps, patient warmers, medical device batteries, and clinical engineering repair services. Also, ECRI has provided free resources including company directories and guidance articles on emergency preparedness. To reach the clearinghouse, go to www.ecri.org and click on "Katrina Information Clearinghouse."
When your facility survives a disaster that includes flooding, you might have problems with your equipment even if water didnt touch your devices, says Jim Keller, vice president of health technology evaluation and safety at ECRI, a nonprofit health services research agency in Plymouth Meeting, PA.Subscribe Now for Access
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