Among Powered for Patients’ top priorities is creating and promoting best practices that safeguard emergency power and expedite response when emergency power is threatened at a critical healthcare facility.
With the creation of The Power Alliance, new and existing best practices will be introduced to operators of critical infrastructure facilities beyond the healthcare sector including water and waste water treatment plants, public safety facilities and data centers that support vital public services such as cell phone and internet connectivity.
Among the most impactful best practices developed by Powered for Patients is its early warning protocol that calls on critical healthcare facilities to provide an early warning to designated government officials and utilities at the first sign of a threat to emergency power during power outages. This new protocol was initially published in Protecting Patients When Disaster Strikes, an acclaimed playbook published in 2017 by Powered for Patients and the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency.
This new protocol, and other best practices, were also highlighted in Roadmap to Resiliency, a white paper co-authored by Powered for Patients and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering. The white paper chronicled threats to emergency power over the course of many disasters and detailed a number of advanced technologies that enhance emergency power resiliency.
The P.I.O.N.E.E.R. Tool, developed by Powered for Patients in 2019, is a powerful new situational awareness tool that automates the process of providing early warning at the first sign of a serious threat to emergency power.
In May 2019, the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency executed a contract with Powered for Patients to lead a multi-phase emergency power resilience initiative focused on critical healthcare facilities that will span a four-year period.
The comprehensive Los Angeles County project encompasses an emergency power resilience assessment, development of new protocols to better safeguard emergency power and expedite prioritized power restoration, creation of a training component and ultimately development and coordination of exercises to test existing and new protocols.
The initial phase of work has been largely completed and it enabled Powered for Patients to develop new best practices to better safeguard emergency power. Among them is the creation of the Los Angeles County Emergency Power Industry Working Group, comprised of generator service, fuel and rental providers and Los Angeles County emergency managers and public health officials. This working group will provide a formal structure for future meetings and stepped up pre-disaster planning and disaster response coordination.
In developing the Power Resilience Blueprint for America in response to COVID-19, Powered for Patients and its Blueprint partner, the Electric Infrastructure Security Council, forged a number of innovative best practices into a comprehensive action plan that addresses a number of emergency power vulnerabilities.