The Colorado floods of 2013. The Rim Fire. Hurricane Sandy. The Joplin tornadoes. Snowmageddon. That's the list of natural disasters that come to mind... just since 2010... and just in the United States.
A friend once told me that there are two distinct dangers of any natural disaster: the disaster itself and the risk of losing power. Those who live in highly dangerous areas like the far western plains, Tornado Alley, and the Outer Banks have to concentrate first on just surviving a natural disaster. Once they've made it out alive, where do they nurse their physical wounds when the power lines have been ripped apart and the generators are flooded?
More hospitals and healthcare facility are asking themselves this question. After Hurricane Katrina, more than 100 deaths occurred in New Orleans hospitals when emergency backup power systems failed. During Hurricane Sandy, New York University's Langone Medical Center plunged into darkness after its own backup generators failed, forcing nearly 200 patients (45 of which were in critical care) to be transported. When a wall of Colorado floodwater slammed into east Boulder's Fraiser Meadows retirement community and blew the transformers, staff members were forced to move 88 assisted living and health care residents (27 of whom had dementia), their beds, and most important belongings in just 20 minutes.
A Prime Example of Preparedness
Fred McMillion, director of the Cape Fear Valley Hospital (CFVH) in North Carolina, questioned his own facility's preparedness in 2007. In the event of a hurricane hitting the Outer Banks, everything within driving distance of the coast would get wiped out. Located 100 miles inland of the Atlantic seaboard, CFVH would become the go-to health care facility. While the medical campus is far enough inland that it would be spared from the tidal rush, it would still need to be prepared for hurricane remnants that pass by overhead.
At the time McMillion first voiced his concern, CFVH had multiple generators of various brands and sizes scattered all over the medical campus. While a good precaution in theory, coordinating the startup and management of the various generators in the event of an emergency would be a disaster in itself. They needed to centralize the plant - pick up the load's diversity. So began the process of preparing CFVH for a long-term power outage.
Providing More Than Just Power
In just six months we had designed a centralized plant that would house the be-all and end-all of backup power systems: four 2,500-kw CAT generators with a total output of 10 MW running on 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel. To put that into perspective, these generators can create enough power to light up approximately 400 homes continuously. The setup of this system grants the facility three distinct advantages during a prolonged power outage:
- It frees facility employees to solve other problems associated with natural disasters
- It maintains patient comfort levels
- It gives healthcare providers a sanctuary during storms
1. Facility employees need to focus on problems that require human resourcefulness. The value of facility employees skyrocket in the face of a natural disaster. With the many problems plaguing buildings during a devastating event, these employees can't be preoccupied with situations that can be solved automatically. The backup power system we designed came with an automated System Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. If the responsive system detects problems with the utility, it runs an algorithm, pumps the generators, and runs emergency power just to that section. In a prolonged outage, the SCADA system will automatically determine if the system becomes overloaded and will shed any non-essential loads. While the entire system can be overridden with a password, its fully automated capabilities allow facility employees to focus on other tasks.
2. Maintaining patient comfort is a widely recognized factor in patient outcome, as my fellow healthcare engineering professional Dan Koenigshofer said in his recent blog. At CFVH, patients will be as comfortable during a power outage as they would be with primary power. Everything comes back on, just as if the primary utility were still pumping. In most hospitals, when you lose the utility, what comes back on is called the emergency side - a handful of lights, some red receptacles, and a limited amount of heating and air conditioning. When the Cape Fear system comes up on backup generators, the entire campus is fully powered. Employees, patients, and family patients can walk down the halls, go to the cafeteria, and rest in comfort. Very few hospitals have this feature.
3. A fully operational facility gives healthcare providers a sanctuary to work. This level of backup power gives emergency providers and staff workers somewhere to stay in a storm. The air conditioning is running, the water is running, the heat is running, and meals are being cooked in the cafeteria. So when healthcare employees are done with their job they can rest in a location that's not far from where they're needed. Being able to provide a place for doctors, nurses, x-ray technicians, and any other employee to eat, sleep and, take a shower will allow them to serve more people, more effectively.
With the entire project complete in just over a year and a half, CFVH was prepared for the 2009 hurricane season. With such a short timeline, and an exponential emphasis being put on preparedness today, I foresee more hospitals along the gulf, east, and west coasts adopting a similar blueprint.