Do you have procedures for an emergency at your Aging Life, Geriatric Care Management or private duty home care agency?
The ability of an agency to function despite an emergency is critical. The 2017 hurricane season has brought us the horror of Harvey with a category 4 storm that has wreaked never before seen flooding. So far crews in Texas have found the bodies of 31 victims of Harvey’s wrath and warned on Wednesday that the number of dead would almost certainly soar as water levels across much of the Houston area start to recede.
In the US.Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans led to new Federal Rules that forced a wide range of health care providers to create emergency plans which created better emergency plans in nursing homes. This brought plans and safety drills but plans had never included the almost biblical flooding that is happening in Houston right now.Ben Taub hospital even with an emergency plan was so flooded it had a difficult time getting patients out, although, in the end, every patient was moved to safety
So in light of Harvey- Does your agency have an emergency plan?
Informal procedures work in a start up care management business but what if the solo practitioner is ill and out?
If illness, accident, some other unforeseen event overtakes an owner or manager, no emergency procedures can be suicide in an emergency, not to mention liability to your elderly clients.
Katrina left New Orleans GCM’s, desperately scrambling to care for their clients in hotels as the floodwater rose. They were and left to re-build their business again, which took years.
Every geriatric care professional needs a formal, written backup plan that dictates action, should a disaster or emergency arise.
It ‘s necessary to assess your company’s risk of temporary or permanent service disruption if a disaster or emergency is experienced. This may seem an overwhelming task at first, but when you break it down into pieces, it becomes workable.
Learn about preparing for emergencies how you can prepare you, your clients and staff for disasters and absences of key personnel. Preparing for these ever growing emergencies, work wide is now in Liz Barlowe’s chapter Preparing for Emergencies in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management.
Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now out on Kindle