evacuations

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CMS: Databases Can Be Used For Disaster Planning To Aid Vulnerable Populations

Susan D. Hall | FierceHealthIT | April 26, 2013

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will allow health information from eight databases to be used to identify vulnerable people who might need help during an emergency. Read More »

Hospitals Face Hurricane Sandy Power Outages, Failed Generators

Karen Cheung-Larivee | FierceHealthcare | October 30, 2012

Even with preparation, back-up systems failed at NYU Langone Medical Center last night, forcing the evacuation of all 215 patients to nearby hospitals, including Sloan Kettering and Mount Sinai, The New York Times reported. There were large-scale power failures in critical areas, including the emergency department, the transplant unit and labor and delivery.
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In Disasters Such as Hurricanes, HIE Is 'As Critical as Having Roads, as Having Fire Hydrants'

Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | October 31, 2012

The Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY) sees itself as a "public utility" as much as an HIE. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as patients bounce between hospitals (and as other public utilities, such as electricity and transportation, are compromised), it has enabled critical continuity of care. The images of dozens of red-flashing ambulances, evacuating as many as 200 patients – some of them in critical condition, some of them infants – from NYU Langone Medical Center, whose backup generator had failed, to hospitals such as Sloan-Kettering and NewYork-Presbyterian, will be some of the most enduring images from the super storm. The harrowing process was made much smoother by the fact that those patients' electronic health records were secure and readily accessible at the hospitals to which they were thanks to New York's statewide HIE... Read More »

In Hurricane’s Wake, Decisions Not To Evacuate Hospitals Raise Questions

Sheri Fink | ProPublica | November 1, 2012

Now, in the late evening hours, the worst-case scenario was unfolding at the main campus of NYU's Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, which had lost much of its backup power at the height of the storm. Could North Shore-LIJ dispatch ambulances from its Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City to pick up four critically ill babies from the neo-natal intensive care unit? New York City hospital and nursing home patients and their loved ones might reasonably have believed they were safe as Hurricane Sandy approached. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had exempted hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying "Zone A" areas of the city from his pre-storm evacuation order. Much thought and planning had gone into the decision to "shelter in place."

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New York’s Ongoing Blackout: Hospitals In Lower Manhattan

Charles Ornstein | ProPublica | November 8, 2012

Long after power is restored from Sandy, the effect of another more-precarious outage is still taking shape: Some of the largest hospitals in lower Manhattan remain shuttered. Other hospitals are scrambling to fill the gap, and concern is rising that the patchwork system can't last for long. Read More »