Parts of a major California hospital went without power for almost four hours on September 6, 2022, after an electric substation failure. During the outage, hospital backup generators failed, impacting several buildings. The emergency department had to close to stroke, heart attack, trauma, and ambulance arrivals. Seven patients had to be transferred to other facilities. Another nine had to be moved to different parts of the hospital.
A doctor described the intensive care unit (ICU) as pitch black. She said, “Everyone just had their iPhones out as little flashlights to try to check on people.” She said the outage meant that the patients that were in the Surgical ICU and the Trauma ICU had no lights or electricity. Patients were on ventilators that ran on batteries that only lasted about 30 minutes. Patients had drips running for medicine, and those only last for about an hour.
The doctor said they only had around 30 minutes to evacuate the entire ICU to another part of the hospital before they would have to start ventilating patients by hand. She said that meant someone would have to stay at the bedside, performing the ventilation and breathing for the patients.
After four hours the generators came back online. The electric company restored power a little over an hour later.
Issue:
An emergency electrical power system must supply power adequate at least for lighting all entrances and exits; equipment to maintain the fire detection, alarm, and extinguishing systems; and life support systems in the event the normal electrical supply is interrupted. When life support systems are used, the facility must provide emergency electrical power with an emergency generator that is located on the premises. All wiring to each unit must be installed in accordance with the requirements of any of the wiring methods in Chapter 3 of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 70 Guidelines: National Electrical Code (NEC); be designed and located so as to minimize the hazards that might cause complete failure due to flooding, fires, icing, and vandalism; and be located so that adequate ventilation is provided. Generators should be operated, tested, and maintained in accordance with manufacturer, local, and/or state requirements.
Discussion Points:
- Review policies and procedures regarding adequate generator capability and the proper installation connections with air conditioning and heating systems to maintain temperatures in desired ranges during power outages, and the ability to operate essential equipment and electronic health records. Also review policies and procedures related to the testing and maintenance of generators. Ensure your Emergency Preparedness Plan includes power interruption and possible generator failure.
- Train staff about the CMS requirements for protecting residents’ health and safety during incidents such as a power outage.
- Periodically audit to ensure that generators are adequate to provide the power needed for the air conditioning system, essential equipment, and electronic health records, and that the generator system is being properly connected, maintained, and regularly serviced. Conduct drills related to backup systems in the event of a power outage with a generator failure.
