Air, Water and Sewer Emergencies--oh MY!

Session Description: TJC (The Joint Commission) and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) require hospitals to have a comprehensive emergency management (EM) program that utilizes an all-hazards approach. (EM.09.01.01) While the definition of an emergency includes serious, unexpected, and dangerous situations requiring immediate action, the written EM plan focused on terrorism, mass shootings, or highly communicable diseases. Common hazards or interruptions to the continuity of operations such as fire, water intrusion, water main breaks etc. can be devastating to a medical facility and threaten the ability to provide safe care. Our plan included these items but lacked defined procedures related to infection prevention. This session will focus on events that occurred at a large multicampus metropolitan facility over 1 year. Participants will be presented with incidents involving: Near total water loss over 1-week, localized fires on an ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and an elevator that effected hospital occupants, water intrusion from a high-pressure fire suppression system, and water leaks suspicious for sewage that effected multiple types of departments. The session will review the Infection Preventionist response to these situations and outline the role and responsibilities of a multidisciplinary team. Participants will review photos that demonstrate the severity of these events and discuss the evidence-based decision making that supported the Infection Preventionist response and drove overall actions. Participants can take this information back to their own healthcare institution and apply it to their emergency management program response.