Long-term care providers around the nation achieved significant levels of proficiency in managing emergencies and disasters during the past few years.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Emergency Preparedness regulations cited in Appendix Z require facilities to develop comprehensive emergency planning contingencies to prepare, respond and recover from adverse events while maintaining continuity of care and services.
While the preparedness and response elements are typically the most focused on phases of emergency management, the greatest opportunity for improvement often exists during the recovery and restoration phase of an emergency or disaster, which helps promote the continuity of services.
The requirement to ensure continuity of services are cited in E-007 of Appendix Z and are summarized as follows: “The EP program shall address patient/client population, including but not limited to persons at risk, the type of services the LTC has the ability to provide in an emergency; and continuity of operations, including delegations of authority and succession plans.”
To help ensure continuity of operations, providers should develop contingencies for recovery and restoration needs long before an emergency occurs. When an adverse incident happens, that is not the time to dive into a database to try and find a reliable service provider. Instead, LTC facilities’ Emergency Operations Plans (EOP) should include a list of reliable recovery and restoration companies that can respond as quickly as possible to emergency incidents requiring clean-up and restoration services.
Whether it is a fire, water intrusion, smoke contamination, bio-hazard clean-up or another kind of environmental emergency or incident involving property damage, having pre-qualified vendors in your bullpen to mitigate the damage and help the facility return to normal operations as quickly as possible is of paramount importance.
Sergei Guk, a recovery and restoration expert with Phoenix, AZ-based RestorationHQ, stresses the importance of vetting these types of vendors before they interact with critical elements of facility operations during an emergency or disaster. Vendors that provide these types of services must also understand the complexities and vulnerabilities of the resident population served in a long-term care facility and have knowledge of the regulatory landscape.
“It is the facility’s responsibility to protect occupants’ health and safety as well as preserve physical property. Mitigating risk begins when you step up to ensure you have a reliable partnership with your recovery team,” Guk said.
A good EOP will not only vet one recovery and restoration company but have other companies on standby in case the facility’s primary recovery and restoration partner needs backup.
“Even the best companies in the world cannot handle everything on their own, especially during a major disaster,” according to Guk. Similar to other contingencies like vendors that supply food, water and medications, facilities should integrate redundancy into their disaster planning program to ensure the availability of specialized recovery services in times of need.
When asked about the importance of pre-planning in advance of an emergency or disaster, Guk shared his perspective.
“The easiest way to develop a good recovery plan is to gather floor plans, identify critical utility shut-off locations and pre-identify equipment staging areas. It is important to have facility-specific information readily available as part of standard operating procedures to help ensure a speedy recovery process.”
From a physical damage perspective, planning to recover from adverse events is not rocket science. It is simply getting your ducks in a row so that in times of need, your team knows who to immediately contact to initiate recovery and restoration services to help maintain continuity of care and services in an LTC facility in accordance with regulations.
It is very important to work with trusted recovery and restoration vendors who specialize in healthcare or other senior services. You don’t want to engage a crew that routinely works with apartment building, manufacturing or strip malls and are not familiar with the sensitivities and requirements of working with vulnerable populations. Take a close look at your facility’s EOP and determine if there are opportunities to improve recovery and restoration capabilities by developing relationships with trusted vendors who will be there when you need them.
One final thought — a good place to start your search for reliable recovery and restoration companies is to check out vendors that are business-affiliates with healthcare associations like those connected with the American Health Care Association, Leading Age and Argentum, as well as other trusted trade organizations.
Stan Szpytek is the president of the national consulting firm, Fire and Life Safety, Inc. based in Mesa, Arizona, and is the Life Safety/Disaster Planning Consultant for the Arizona Health Care Association, California Association of Health Facilities (CAHF), Utah Health Care Association and American Assisted Living Nurses Association (AALNA). Szpytek is a former deputy fire chief and fire marshal with more than 40 years of experience in life safety compliance and emergency preparedness. For more information, visit www.FLSafety.org or e-mail Szpytek at [email protected].
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
