Flood fails to 'wash out' ED's ability to communicate
Redundancies help keep phone lines open
The floods that ravaged Cedar Rapids, IA, in July caused several hospitals to evacuate their patients, including Mercy Medical Center, a 370-bed regional medical facility. However, the hospital remained in operation for half a day before patients were evacuated, and the ED not only continued to function (although it was moved to a different floor), but its phone system and wireless electronic medical record (EMR) system remained up and running thanks to careful planning and quick thinking on the part of the ED's leadership.
The ED was on the first floor, and the labs, pharmacy, and radiology were in the basement. The flood hit on July 13, and the three departments in the basement were the first to evacuate. "Once the pharmacy and labs had to evacuate, and we lost our CT scan and plain film, it was hard to run the ED," notes Tammy Meier, RN, CEN, the ED director.
By mid-afternoon, with the water rising, it became clear the ED also would have to be evacuated. "We decided to move to the old eye surgery center, which was one floor up and was being phased out," she recalls.
As the physical move was being planned, however, Meier and Chad Ware, RN, CEN, the ED's program coordinator, determined what needed to be done to keep their EMR and phone systems operational. "Tammy and I scouted out the area [when the floods came] and knew if we had to evacuate, this was going to be the best place to come, so we had talked to IT and they had quickly installed wireless access points for us and got things ready," says Ware.
The hospital administration actually started making arrangements the day before, says Rich Head, director of information services, who says the system is provided by T-Systems.
The phone system, also provided by Cisco Systems, uses a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) supported by servers, and it was purchased to replace a more traditional private branch exchange (PBX) system. The value of this decision became evident quickly. Because the telephone numbers "reside" in the phones themselves, "we were able to just unplug the phones and plug them into another jack [in the new space], so we had all our phone numbers operational and the main phone system kept working," Ware explains. Thus, she says, the department was able to maintain phone communications with virtually no down time.
Resource
For more information on wireless systems, contact:
- T-Systems North America, Lisle, IL 60532. Phone: (630) 493-6100. Fax: (630) 493-6111. Web: www.t-systemsus.com.
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