To bring everyone up to speed on what was actually occurring, the lightening strike downtown took out the power grid for the downtown medical district. As our generators kicked in, some of the exhaust made its way into some of the external ventilation ducts which is why our staff began to smell "smoke." As the fire alarms were pulled, the elevators shut down as they are supposed to, but they shut down while several of our engineers were en route to other calls thus trapping them in the elevators! This is why they weren't responding to the emergency as I expected, and admittedly probably the only good excuse I can think of in a situation like this! We practice a lot of scenarios, but this was one I honestly hadn't considered. One physician noted that he has practiced at our hospital for 18 years and never seen anything like this. Of course we will do a post-incident debriefing as a result of this event, and I will be interested to see how we go about developing contingency plans around this lesson learned. I will leave that topic for another post....
To the credit of our leaders that were still in the building and all of our team members caring for our patients and the hospital, they performed remarkably under these stressed conditions. Respiratory therapists quickly attended to our ventilated patients, nurses secured battery-power for our VAD patients, the OR crew kept our patients safe by switching to portable gas tanks, and so-on, all without a single adverse event to our patients! As the situation returned to normal and power was restored, I finished my rounds and was able to talk to some of our staff and physicians. Through my conversations, my belief and respect for our team members commitment to our patients was solidly reaffirmed. I heard stories of people speeding back into work to pitch-in and help their co-workers, med/surg nurses volunteered to come to the ICU to help tend to our most critical patients, and even as I write tonight our bio-med and IT staff are continuing to restore the multitudes of computers, monitors, and equipment that were affected by the power outage. To each of you I give you my heartfelt thanks and admiration for demonstrating excellence in action - Thank you all for an exciting evening!
3 comments:
Just commenting on the email we received regarding the economic crisis faced by this country and this hospital in particular. I just wanted to relate that if we cut staffing much more, we can expect to incur additional costs in the areas of skin breakdown, hospital acquired infections, customer satisfaction with services rendered, etc. Morale is already poor on the unit where I work, supplies are in short supply, and it seems that job satisfaction is fading because it USED to be about patient care but is now more focused on the bottom line. There is a certain cost of doing business and a certain minimum safe staffing level, regardless of what a clipboard or analyst tells you. I pray for the safety of our patients and that we might be allowed to hire staff members again on our unit.
I'd like to make two comments about the elevator situation.
1.Chicago fire code has all elevator cabs automatically return to the bottoms of their respective shafts with doors open thus releasing any passengers that may have been inside at the time of the alarm. They remain in this condition until the fire department or engineering staff resets the alarm restoring normal operations. They also have a "fire key" that allows them to operate them manually.
2.Perhaps the engineers should have heeded the signs: "In case of fire use stairway"
Anon 8:41...here is a more detailed account I just got from our facilities leader...
"There was a misunderstanding that Engineering was trapped on an elevator. Our Engineer on duty stated that he was waiting on an elevator, and that was interpreted to mean he was waiting ON AN ELEVATOR....he was in the sub-basement and there are only two elevators that service that level. He ended up going up 3 flights of stairs to re-enter the building.
There is also a disagreement among regulators about use of elevators during a fire. There are smoke detectors in each elevator lobby. If there is smoke in the elevator lobby, the smoke detectors activate, and the cars go to the ground floor and open. You would then have to use the stairs. It is commonly acknowledged that if the elevators continue to operate, then they are safe to use, but one regulator continues to require the signs.
The complicating factor in this case was that the power failed and only one car in each bank is automatically on emergency power. We need to ensure the elevators are properly operating during this type of event. This is checked at least annually during the annual elevator inspection/certification. We will double check those cars reported as having a problem."
Hope that helps!
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