Health providers have been under a lot of pressure over the last couple years, dealing with the increased demand from the pandemic. For those in Florida and surrounding states, they’ve also had to deal with the challenges of providing medical services under the threat of natural disaster, with hurricanes readily rolling through. While it’s not always possible to operate as normal under such conditions, assorted Florida hospitals have been taking steps to ensure they can keep providing services to patients, even under threat of winds and floods, to which Florida hospitals are uniquely at risk.
Although each hospital will have their own plans in place, the actions they take in advance or during storms will differ, according to a daily briefing on Advisory Board. The Sarasota Memorial Health Care System performs checks on any backup communications systems to ensure smooth operation, and designate staff in teams that either will be on duty during any storm or will relieve those staff after the storm has passed. In comparison, Tampa General Hospital prepares flood walls around its campus to minimize flooding, and other hospitals in the expected path look to cancel non-emergency surgeries and other less critical procedures. For some organizations, like Advent Health, efforts are also made to move higher risk patients to sister facilities in safer areas.
Says David Banks, senior EVP and chief strategy and organizational transformation officer for Advent Health, to Scientific American, “Unfortunately, we get a lot of practice with this, so the hospital systems know what to do. Usually, in these situations, people become very collaborative and supportive. And the state agencies are very proactive in ensuring we have what we need to get through these kinds of situations.”
Source:
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2022/09/29/hurricane-ian
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hundreds-of-hospitals-are-at-risk-of-hurricane-flooding/
