Hospitals working to improve emergency policies

The Rio Grande Valley’s hospitals faced some obstacles in coordinating an evacuation plan with state and federal governments when Hurricane Dean threatened the region, a disaster-preparedness group said Friday.

At a meeting of the Hospital Preparedness Program Committee, a community group composed of hospital representatives and first responders, members acknowledged a few glitches in getting a last-resort evacuation plan up and running.

For example, to request evacuation assistance from state and federal agencies — such as aircraft to evacuate hospital patients — hospitals now must submit manifests listing the patients’ diagnoses and medical equipment needed, officials said. Not all Valley hospitals were aware of this requirement earlier this summer, when Dean approached, they said.

Representatives from Texas Department of State Health Services ended up calling hospitals individually at 2 a.m. about 72 hours before Dean’s predicted landfall, asking them for the forms, said John Huss, DSHS emergency-preparedness coordinator. Then, the storm took a turn, making the evacuation plan unnecessary.

“In the future, we’d like to have a central point of contact,” Huss said.

Some hospital representatives said they received multiple copies of the form, or didn’t clearly understand the purpose of the form.

That’s why meeting as a committee to discuss these procedures is important, said Jean Bennett, regional emergency coordinator for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

“The process will be refined with your input,” she said.

Each hospital must have an emergency preparedness plan of its own, including an evacuation plan, to be licensed, said Tom Hushen, administrator of the Rio Grande Valley Trauma Regional Advisory Council. Hospitals only would need to call on state and federal assistance if that plan falls through, he said.

Hushen said that officials are working to develop a computerized system for creating the required patient manifests, cutting down on red tape standing between the hospitals and evacuation help.

“We’re hoping that information will be in the system already,” he said.

Bennett said the hospitals would still have received evacuation assistance during Hurricane Dean, despite some paperwork mix-ups.

The hospitals and government officials will work out the glitches in the evacuation system, said Remi Garza, hospital-preparedness program coordinator for the advisory council.

“It’s the closest we’ve come to having assistance from the state (for evacuation),” Garza said. “These procedures were new for everyone.”