ASHE conference coverage: Joint Commission engineer worried about contingencies
Hi, it’s Scott Wallask signing in today. I just got back Tuesday night from the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) conference.
Lots happening on The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) front, as you can imagine. We’ll be covering this in detail in upcoming issues of Briefings on Hospital Safety and Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.
One thing I did want to mention is that George Mills, senior engineer at The Joint Commission, said he was concerned about the lack of realistic utility contingencies in hospital emergency operations plans.
From Mills view, some utility contingency provisions read great on paper, but are never really tested and thus aren’t reliable.
Mills asked ASHE attendees this: “When was the last time [you] walked through to make sure these things are even operating?” In other words, if your utility contingency plans center of certain equipment working, check this equipment out during down time before a disaster strikes.
Mills would rather have a utility failure occur when hospitals are expecting it during testing than during an emergency when patient lives are at risk, he said.
By the way, if you need help with the 2009 emergency management, life safety, or EC standards and can spare a day away from the office, come to our Environment of Care for 2009 seminar September 5 in Boston.
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