Solutions of hospital evacuation planning through regional coalition development

As seen during the hospital evacuations of Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, the needs of high acuity patients during evacuation rapidly exceed local response resources. The challenges faced during an evacuation are finding available beds for a multitude of patients in need of specialized treatment, locating resources available to transport patients to receiving facilities and communicating with hospitals and public health agencies across jurisdictional borders. Seventeen northeastern hospitals created a coalition to address these current gaps in evacuation plans. United by a Memorandum of Understanding, these institutions created a tiered operations plan to support local evacuation response based on the needs of the facility and the resources available. Within the coalition, evacuating hospitals are able to communicate critical care bed availability and effectively communicate with receiving facilities and state responding agencies. The coalition has developed an HSEEP compliant exercise series to test the operations plan. Many lessons were learned during the creation of this coalition including ways to increase stakeholder accountability, the importance of multi-state systems awareness, and the underlying complexities that accompany moving patients with specialized care needs. The development of this coalition created a network of support among the large academic Northeastern hospitals. This coalition has worked with multiple jurisdictions to develop interstate protocols surrounding hospital evacuation. This coordination has led to easier facilitation among states and out of state hospitals.