Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service

(RACES)

EMERGENCY HOSPITAL COMMUNICATIONS
By; Bob Blake..N9FIM
contents:

INTRODUCTION: Over the past two years a concentrated effort has been made by Marion County RACES to work with the hospitals within Marion County (Indianapolis Indiana) to improve their communications capabilities during emergencies with the use of amateur radio. This effort has involved the identification of the major hospitals, their current facilities, their needs during different types of emergencies, and amateur radio's appropriate response. It was also necessary to develop materials to introduce the amateur radio community to the hospitals and define the facilities that would be required. This effort is only the start of a larger effort to raise the level of preparedness for medical emergencies in disaster situations in Marion County and is expected to take many years to complete.

HOSPITAL IDENTIFICATION: Initially it was necessary to develop a listing of the hospitals in Marion County (Indianapolis Indiana) that constituted the major emergency facilities that would be utilized initially in a disaster situation. Marion County Department of Emergency Management, the Marion County Emergency Medical Association Council, and several of the local township fire departments were consulted. Our initial list of hospitals consisted of the following: Wishard, University and Methodist (Clarian Group), Community Hospitals (East, South, & North), Roudebush V.A. Hospital, West view, St. Francis Hospitals (Beech grove & South Port), and St. Vincent Our next step was to contact our RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) members to find out if any of them had any contacts within these hospitals that could be used as a starting point in making contact. These personal contacts proved INVALUABLE in the process in getting our "foot in the door" and saved many phone calls in tracking down the right people to contact .

CURRENT HOSPITAL COMMUNICATIONS: An effort was made to identify the current communications capabilities of the Marion County hospitals. The following communications methods were identified: wired telephone, cellular telephone, wireless pagers, IHERN (Indianapolis Hospital Emergency radio Notification) System, the Marion County MECCA public safety radio system and many hospitals have an internal security and maintenance radio systems.. The wired telephone system and its limitations during disasters are well known as well as the hospital's potential loss of it's internal telephone system (PBX). Cellular telephone systems overloaded in a disaster situation. Most wireless pagers use the wired &/or the cellular telephone system and are vulnerable to many forms of weather related disasters plus the problem that they are very limited in the amount of data can be conveyed over the system. The IHERN system is a single frequency simplex radio system that covers all of the hospitals in Marion County and would be easily overloaded because it has no "net organization" during a disaster. The Marion Co. MECCA public safety radio system is a state of the art "trunking" radio system that carries the Indianapolis Police Department, Marion Co. Sheriff's Department, Indianapolis Fire Department, 5 Township fire departments, Indiana State Police, Marion Co. Coroner, Marion Co. Hospitals, and several other support organizations. In the event of an area disaster this system will be heavily loaded and slowed by the volume of traffic. Most of the local hospitals have "IN-HOUSE" radio systems for security and maintenance services. In the event of an emergency these systems do not have the range nor a number of extra available units/operators to be of much assistance.

HOSPITAL COMMUNICATIONS NEEDS IN VARIOUS TYPES OF EMERGENCIES: Hospital emergencies can be grouped in to two types: LOCAL - applying to only the individual hospital, and AREA - that apply to the community including other hospitals and other public facilities. The LOCAL emergency may involve a power failure, Failure of the hospitals PBX telephone system, outside telephone cable cuts, and bomb/biological threats to name a few. AREA emergencies might involve large fires, civil disorders, explosions, traffic accidents, aircraft crashes, derailments, weather disasters, and even epidemics. The LOCAL type of hospital emergency would possibly require placing Amateur Radio operators at individual nurses stations for intra hospital communications; placing amateur operators at administrative positions to facilitate outside communications; provide a communications link between the hospital and public safety organizations to facilitate traffic control. These types of operations may require a larger number of amateur radio operators but probably not for too long of a duration. AREA type hospital emergencies would likely require amateur radio to provide patient tracking, supply logistics, patient distribution, medical information message handling, and facility coordination. These AREA operations would probably be of longer duration but involve fewer people at any given time. These emergencies would most likely involve most if not all area hospitals simultaneously for a portion of time.

AMATEUR RADIO'S RESPONSE: It is felt that the most effective means of handling these types of emergency is to start with an individual hospital core group of amateur radio operators that we will call a "First Responder Team". Each of these First Responder Teams would be composed of about 6 armature operators with a team chairperson and encouraged to become as familiar as possible with both the hospital's physical plant and it's staff. In any type of emergency the "First Responders Teams" would be first called to their respective hospital, either by the hospital or by the Department of Emergency Management, and would both start their communications operation and be responsible for their own hospital's emergency communications operation. In the event that more amateur radio operators or other support are needed the "First Responder Team" would communicate those needs through the local RACES organization to the department of emergency management. Each amateur radio operator that is assigned to a "First Responder Team" would be assigned to only ONE team, however, depending on the situation they might be asked to help out at another hospital. Finally, ALL members of "First Responder Teams" will be volunteers!

NECESSARY MATERIALS: In order to help introduce the hospitals to amateur radio it was necessary to develop an information packet. In our case, our packet consisted of a cover letter, a copy of "AMATEUR RADIO: A Communications Resource for Hospital Emergencies" by April Moell, M.A. WA6OPS, and an "Emergency Amateur Radio Communications Antenna" document that describes an antenna that we would like the hospitals to provide to facilitate our operations. The cover letter re-introduces amateur radio, and RACES to the hospitals contact person as well as introducing the other two documents. The letter also requests that this information packet be distributed to interested parties within the hospital and suggests a follow-up meeting after the material has been digested. April Moell's booklet (40+ pages), does an excellent job of explaining what amateur radio can and cannot do for hospitals in emergency situations. The emergency antenna document describes the type of antenna that we would like to see provided by each hospital. This document gives a materials list, materials source list, schematic diagrams, and basic mounting and positioning information.

FOLLOW - UP It is necessary to follow-up the mailing of the printed materials with a series of phone calls to try to set up a meeting with the hospital's emergency and administrative staffs. At these meetings unique concerns and conditions of the individual hospital are addressed. Also, the operation of "First Responder Teams" should be discussed. In this meeting the hospital's and RACES principal contacts should be introduced, as these are the people that will be working most closely together. Plans for the installation of an amateur radio antenna and further meetings should be discussed and planned. Finally, and most important, this is the time to ask the hospital to distribute information about this effort to all of its employees with emphasis on asking any employee that is an amateur radio operator to let it be known and to join in the effort.

GOING FORWARD: After the above has occurred it is time to select the members of each hospital's "First Responder Team"; choose a chairperson, and have a meeting to introduce the hospital's emergency staff to the first responder team. The first responder team should then "pick up the ball" and begin working directly with their hospital; i.e. familiarizing themselves with the hospital's physical facilities, personal, and amateur radio operating conditions, etc. In the future on going "call-up drills", antenna tests, severe weather drills, amateur radio demonstrations, and hospital wide exercises should be planned. These on going efforts not only perform their intended purpose but also homogenize the amateur radio first responder team members into the fabric of their hospital and consequently facility working relationships for when the "real thing" occurs.

CONCLUSION:

To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, this is not the end or the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning. In Marion County much more work needs to be done to prepair for any disaster that may come along. We locally have been very blessed in that we have not had a major disaster in over 30 years! Thus, we have not been tested and do not know where all of our weaknesses are. On area that needs to be addressed that some communities have found valuable is the development of a medical advisory group that can be connected to the emergency amateur radio net to give on-line advice and instructions on a real-time bases. Contacts need to be developed with the military, and National Guard to facilitate matters during disasters. Continuing work needs to be done with the local public safety organizations (Police, Fire, Sheriff, etc.) to eliminate "TURF" problems and to demonstrate that we are there to help not to be a problem or concern. This effort probably won't or shouldn't ever end; but you can't get closer to the end with out first starting and trying to get something established. These are just the efforts of one group, be they right or not, it is what we have started. At the time this report is being written, all of our major hospitals have been contacted and are all in various positions from just receiving the information too having fully functioning first responder teams. This has been a slow process with lots of "telephone tag" involved but slow and steady progress was made and others that take on this type of effort should not get discouraged.

References: RACES - Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service 1-AMATEUR RADIO: A Communications Resource for Hospital Emergencies by April , M.A. - Moell WA6OPS - Is available for $7.50 + $1.50 S&H each from: April Moell , M.A. P.O. Box 2508 Fullerton, CA 92837-2508
-Emergency Amateur Radio Communications Antenna - is available from Robert Blake - N9FIM 11064 Indian Lake Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46236-9387 - Please provide a 9" X 12" self addressed envelope with postage for 2 ounces.3
If you have any questions, comments, etc.; please send them to:
Robert A. Blake - N9FIM RACES-Operations Officer 11064 Indian Lake Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46236-9387 or (317) 823-2171 or via EMAIL TO:Bob N9FIM

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