Evacuation Drills ~ Levy on Practicing Responses

Perhaps one of the most distressing and lives-at-risk elements of Superstorm Sandy was the NYU Langone hospital emergency evacuation of ~200 patients (including 20 babies and 45 critical care patients) after multiple power systems failed. MIT alum, healthcare sector leader, and patient advocate Paul Levy posts about how evacuation practice can help and specifically spotlights his own hospital's drill in their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)...

"An important aspect of hospital operations is to prepare for the unexpected, a catastrophe that can cause a major disruption to patient care. All hospitals plan for such things, [plus we] drill."

Practice makes perfect and the NYU team (and their NYPD, FD, and ER brethren) stayed cool and dealt magnificently with a very severe situation. See more in David Goodman and Colin Moynihan's NYTimes piece Patient Evac From City Medical Center After Power Failure...

P.S. See here ABC report afterwards... P.P.S. CNN's Cooper interviews baby-carrying nurse Margot Condon...