DEFINITIONS AND CLARIFICATION OF PROCEDURES

 

  1. Partner Hospital Concept: each hospital is linked to designated partners or "buddy" hospitals as the hospital of "first call for help" during a disaster or mass casualty incident.
  2. Letter Agreement: Participants will, by affixing their signature to the Letter Agreement, agree in principal to voluntarily coordinate mutual aid services to each of the signatories in a good faith effort to minimize risk to patient and hospital operations in the event of a disaster.
  3. State Emergency Operations Center: at the Department of Public Safety, Waterbury, Vermont Emergency Management maintains an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) which is the hub of state government during serious emergencies or disasters. This serves as a command control center where coordinators and officials can gather safely to respond to emergencies and ensure continuity of government during and after disasters.
  4. Local Emergency Operations Center: the local Emergency Operations Center is a location within a local community where officials from all community agencies gather to coordinate and make policy and response decisions in a timely manner.
  5. Command Center: the impacted facility’s command center is responsible for informing the state Emergency Operations Center of its situation and of any needs that cannot be accommodated by the partner hospital. The senior administrator or designee is responsible for requesting personnel, pharmaceuticals, supplies, equipment, or authorizing the evacuation of patients. The senior administrator or designee will coordinate both internally, and with the donor/patient-accepting hospital, all of the logistics involved in implementing this disaster aid services agreement. Logistics include identifying the number and specific location where personnel, pharmaceuticals, supplies, equipment, or patients should be sent, how to enter the security perimeter, estimated time interval to arrival and estimated return date of borrowed supplies, etc.
  6. Hospital Indicators: the indicators are designed to catalogue hospital resources that could be available for other hospitals during a disaster.
  7. Documentation of Equipment and Supplies: documentation should detail the items involved in the transaction, condition of material prior to the loan (if applicable), and the party responsible for the material.

    8. A key to success in insuring sufficient supplies, materials, equipment, and services is prior agreements with suppliers. It is suggested that a hospital have basic supplies, etc. to last at least 3 days after the disaster.

    Agreements with out-of-area EMS agencies as well as other transportation resources (i.e. bus companies and school buses) to transport patients in evacuations.

  8. Communications: hospitals and the Division of Emergency Management will collaborate on a communication system to ensure a dedicated, secure, and reliable method to communicate with the Emergency Operations Center, other hospitals, state and local police, fire, ambulance, and other municipal services.
  9. Public Relations: hospitals are encouraged to develop and coordinate the outline of their response prior to any disaster. The partner hospitals should be familiar with each other’s mechanisms for addressing the media. Each hospital is responsible for developing and coordinating with other hospitals and relevant organizations, its media response to the disaster. The response should include reference to the fact that the situation is being addressed in a manner agreed upon by a previously established disaster aid services plan. You and your partner hospital should identify a local radio station that will keep the community informed on the situation.
  10. Initiation of Transfer of Personnel, Material Resources or Patients: the senior hospital administrator or designee at each hospital shall make the decision and have authority to initiate the transfer or receipt of personnel, material resources, or patients. Items to be addressed include: emergency credentialing and privileges for physicians and allied health personnel. The senior administrator and medical director, in conjunction with the directors of the affected services, will make a determination as to whether medical staff and other personnel from another facility will be required at the impacted hospital to assist in patient care activities.

Identification system using badges, i.d. cards, color-coded wrist bands, colored vest, or other visible methods, to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to restricted areas, and to help protect patient privacy.

Develop a manual patient tracking system with simplified, but essential patient information (see Data Collection Form: Hospital Mutual Aid Plan Disaster Tag.)

Identify services and bed capacities, and make that information available to the EOC.

Improve the conditions under which they receive evacuated nursing home and ACLF patients by entering into formal agreements with those facilities and require that medications, patient records, special needs equipment, and personnel be transferred with the patient.