A veterans’ facility experienced two bomb threats over a 6-month period. One perpetrator was identified, charged and pled guilty and police are still searching for the other person. A bomb threat could result in substandard quality of care and put residents’ private health information at risk causing a HIPAA breach if there is no emergency preparedness bomb threat plan in place, or if staff fail to follow the plan.
Compliance Perspective – Bomb Threats:
The Compliance and Ethics Officer with management team members from risk/safety, nursing, maintenance, human resources, dietary and administration should review the facility’s emergency preparedness plan’s evacuation and tracking protocols. Staff will be educated and trained on all aspects of the facility’s emergency plan with specific emphasis on responding to a bomb threat and the critical provision requiring a nursing home to track patients and on-duty staff during and after an emergency, whether they have sheltered in place or have been evacuated to an alternate care site. Also, staff will receive training on the facility’s protocol for securing the residents’ private health information during an emergency. The Compliance and Ethics Officer in cooperation with the management staff will conduct an emergency preparedness bomb threat evacuation drill to evaluate the effectiveness of evacuating, tracking, documentation and the ease with which appropriate information is communicated to each resident’s family, friends, other representatives and with the emergency response systems. The results of the drill will be compiled and reviewed to determine any areas that require adjustment or further education.
Last week, a Mississippi man pleaded guilty to making a bomb threat against a veterans’ nursing home on February 17, 2018. In early August, the same veterans’ nursing home received another bomb threat. On these two occasions, the facility was evacuated while emergency responders, a regional bomb squad and State Highway Patrol bomb-sniffing K-9 dogs searched the facility. In both instances they found no bombs.
The man who pleaded guilty for making the initial bomb threat is said to have called the main phone line of the veterans nursing home. He told the person who answered the phone that he was going to blow the place up. Last week, he was in federal court for a pretrial conference when he decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial.
The police are now searching for the person who made the most recent bomb threat. It seems the call was initially made to the VA Hospital around 5:17 p.m. and staff there called 911. Both the city’s Fire Department and the County Sheriff’s Department responded. The bomb squad and the K-9 bomb-sniffing dogs searched the facility as in the previous threat but again did not find any explosive devices.
The city’s Chief of Police who was at the court proceedings for the first bomb threat said, “It is very coincidental that we had another one less than six months ago.”
