Don't get tied down with event-specific emergency management plans

You will find surveyors who look for specific emergency response plans for each of your vulnerabilities identified in the HVA, which is not really a standards-based requirement.

That's not to say there wouldn't be a certain benefit to having some event-specific response plans--there are, after all, standards-based requirements for having specific plans relating to utility systems disruptions and medical equipment failures.

Only develop emergency response plans for specific events in a manner that makes sense to the organization. For instance, those hospitals in the northern half of the country probably don’t have to do a ton of planning relative to winter weather. Do you really need to have a documented policy or procedure to deal with a snow storm? I'd be inclined to think not.

As with just about anything in the EC that doesn't involve specific requirements, what you do (or choose not to do) should be based on your risk assessment and then discussion at your safety committee or disaster planning committee.

The Joint Commission expects you to:

1. Look at the risks involved
2. Identify strategies for appropriately managing those risks
3. Implement those strategies
4. Monitor performance to make sure that everything turns out as you thought it would

When The Joint Commission reconfigured the emergency management standards, it moved towards a performance improvement model. I think we'll see more of that kind of thing as the commission rolls out future standards revisions.