Document Provides Alternate Facility in Emergency Hospital Evacuation
Officials at DeSales University and St. Luke’s Hospital – Bethlehem Campus signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on July 12, 2010 that designates the university as the primary relocation site if St. Luke’s Hospital – Bethlehem Campus is faced with an emergency where a large number of the patients would need to be evacuated.
“Trying to locate an appropriate facility that can temporarily accommodate the special needs of ill patients would be a challenging task during a crisis,” said Joel Fagerstrom, COO at St. Luke’s Hospital & Heath Network. “Pre-establishing a site that we know will support our hospital’s needs is a critical part of our emergency preparedness plan.”
“Emergency management is about relationships,” he continued. “Establishing a relationship with a partner and pre-planning for emergencies creates a more seamless execution during a crisis,” Fagerstrom explained.
"DeSales University is pleased to be able to offer St. Luke's Hospital our facilities, if needed, for a mass evacuation scenario," said Robert J. Snyder, Vice President for Administration and Finance. "We hope there is never a cause to implement this plan, but advance preparation will help St. Luke's and DeSales handle an emergency together if it would occur."
Fagerstrom agreed. “Hospitals have an inherent responsibility to know what kinds of situations might occur and plan accordingly, in the best interest of the community. This agreement will ultimately help to relieve some of the burden on county emergency management organizations especially during a far-reaching emergency,” he said. “When public safety agencies can help county emergency management, it benefits the community response overall.”
Located approximately 6 miles away, the DeSales’ University Center building is a good fit for the hospital’s needs, said Alan Lynch, Safety and Security Director at St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network. The 26,000-square foot building has the infrastructure necessary to support the electrical, heating, air conditioning, space and food service that patients would need in order to keep them as comfortable as possible.
The University would be established as a temporary facility during a situation in which the hospital may need to be fully evacuated. St. Luke’s would first work with other area hospitals to relocate critically ill patients, but depending on the situation, the hospital would relocate other patients to DeSales.
“DeSales University is to be commended for accepting this responsibility. The university was very responsive from the moment we approached them,” Fagerstrom said. “Having strong ties through our clinical partnerships with DeSales’ nursing and physician assistant programs enabled us to work quickly together through what otherwise may be a cumbersome process.”
According to Fagerstrom, the process took 6 to 8 months to complete. The MOU is a five-year, automatically-renewing agreement with review at DeSales slated for every three years.
Both DeSales and St. Luke’s are involved and have been trained in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), a federal emergency management framework that outlines community planning and emergency preparedness. When the two organizations began the discussions for the agreement, both were “speaking the same language” and both organizations understood their respective responsibility within the community, Fagerstrom said.
About St. Luke's
St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network is a nationally recognized, regional, integrated network of non-profit hospitals, physicians and other health-related organizations providing care primarily in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Schuylkill, Bucks, Montgomery, Berks and Monroe counties in Pennsylvania. The network includes four hospitals encompassing 734 licensed beds, more than 44,800 annual admissions, 1,224 physicians, 6,825 employees and 1,248 volunteers.
Contact:
Denise Rader, Communications/Marketing,
St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network
610-954-4104, raderd@slhn.org
Press Release: DeSales University and St. Luke's Hospital - Bethlehem Campus sign memorandum of understanding | Posted on: 7/16/2010
For more info:
Tom McNamara, Executive Director of Communications
DeSales University | 2255 Station Avenue | Center Valley, PA 18034
610.282.1100 x1219 | Tom.McNamara@desales.edu |
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