I found a great article about disaster planning for physician practices, and an even better comment at the bottom of the article I felt worth sharing. It's from Bear Rock Electric located in Maryland. They sum up some concerns that practice managers should think about in a nice, concise way. I am also including a link to the whole article from MDNews.com about power outages and it's affect on practice management: Small practices and clinics have to prepare, too. This really applies to all health care facilities - not just small physician practices. Assisted Living, Nursing homes, Urgent Care Centers, CBRF.
Here's the comment from Bear Rock Electric:
Bear Rock Electric services the Maryland community for emergency preparedness and power outages and we thank you for such an insightful article. Medical processionals do face very unique situations during storms and power outages and we couldn't agree more that a plan should be in place. Not only do they have the same problems as anyone else, but they also face the tremendous disruptions caused by hours or even days of long nuisance outages.
We ask them to think about the following questions:
•What if you're in the middle of an office procedure?
•What happens to the day's schedule and the rest of the week?
•What about your refrigerated supplies?
•Where will your patients go? Does the ER have your specialty or dental facilities?
Standby power solves all these problems and if they own their building, it also protects that building from a devastating mold infection that could render it uninhabitable or require expensive remediation. It only takes 72 hours for black mold to get started behind sheet rock.
