Power Outage/Water loss

[mgriffiths]

At work today we lost our internet (and therefore access to our EMR because we access remotely) and then approximately 1 hour later we lost power.  Our building is on a well and therefore we lost water - no functioning toilets, sinks, eye wash stations, etc.  We do have hand sanitizer available though.

I'm curious if anyone knows of resources regarding rules/regulations in regards to keeping a medical office open that is servicing patients without basic facilities?  Without power/internet we just use paper sheets and then those are scanned into the charts at a later time.  No big deal, but still a MAJOR headache. But without toilets/sinks/eye wash stations/etc. I would think that is a different animal entirely.

For example, my last patient of the day was a suture removal - placed in ER and coming to me for removal.  What if in the process I get a piece of "something" in my eye, or the patient bleeds and I get blood on me...I'm supposed to douse my eyes with hand sanitizer?  Maybe I'm over-dramatizing some, but you get the point.  My second-to-last patient was a UTI...how do I confirm with a urine sample?  Yes, there are recommendations that you can treat based on history of UTI without a visit/Dip UA - but we could have easily just redirected the patient to one of our other offices about 10 minutes away.

I have no problem working through adversity, but I do have a problem when it puts myself, my nurse, and possibly even the patient at risk.

So any direction would be awesome. I do plan to call local health department next week (they're already closed) to ask for some "hypothetical" information.

[ventana]

I would think any sane office would go to minimal staffing - one provder one office staff to handle the emergency or the patient that shows up - but mostly just close shop

[thinkertdm]

? How can you make money if the office is closed?  Safety costs money. 

[sas5814]

We lost water due to a broken main last year and were told it would be back on in about an hour. People used the toilets when they had to thinking the water would come back on. 5 hours later the clinic smells like a Calcutta outhouse and the king of vice presidents who is in another state tells our admin "we NEVER close the urgent care centers." What an asshole.

I didn't even argue. It is pointless when confronted with remote control idiocy.