Welcome to Jefferson Regional Medical Center

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

SECTION 1: POLICY
To provide alternative voice communications when either internal or external communications has been disrupted.
SECTION 2: PROCEDURE
When it becomes evident that either the internal or external communication system has failed, the following procedures should be followed:

Internal Phone System (Total hardware failure or loss of power.)

Loss of Local Telephone Service (Central Office)

Loss of Long Distance Carrier (Point of Presence)

Loss of External Power

Catastrophic Disaster

I. Internal Phone System (Total hardware failure or loss of power.)

A. Activation:

1. Administrator on call or Nursing Shift Supervisor will, at their discretion, activate this emergency communication plan and the internal disaster plan by advising the operator to contact, Telecommunications, Security and Maintenance personnel.

B. Response:

1. Upon activation Security will assemble all the radios and all hospital cellular phones available.

a. Radios - from Security and  Maintenance.
b. Cellular phones - Lab, Transportation and Ambulance.

2. Areas designated with Power Failure Phones will institute their use.

1173-Switchboard
1585-5th Floor
1011, 1014 - Emergency Room
1208 - Stress
1036, 1037-Surgery
1292-SNF
1185-ICU
1055-Radiology
1285-2nd Floor
1092-Clinical Eng.
1385-3rd Floor
1087-Facilities
1485-4th Floor
1070-Admitting

3. A.O.C. / N.S.S. will distribute them to hospital personnel as they see fit. A log will be kept by security of whom has which radio / cellular phone.

4. Telecommunications staff will assess the damage and attempt to correct the problem if possible.

5. Telecommunications will redirect incoming and outgoing lines to single line phones or cellular phones as needed.

6. If repairs are beyond the scope of the Telecommunications staff, then they will immediately contact an authorized service vendor for additional assistance.

7. Hospital staff may be used as “message runners” if needed to maintain communications between departments and the command center.

8. All radios will be returned to Security when the in-house system is in working order.

9. All  cellular phones will be returned to Security when the external communications system is in working order.

II. Loss of Local Telephone Service (Central Office)

A. Activation:

1. Administrator on Call or Nursing Shift Supervisor will, at their discretion, activate this emergency communication plan and the internal disaster plan by advising the operator to contact, Telecommunications, Security and Maintenance personnel.

B. Response:

1. When a loss of local phone service occurs you will not be able to place calls outside of the hospital campus and you will not be able to receive incoming calls from outside the campus area.

2. Internally you will be able to make calls throughout the Hospital, RCF, Home Health, Laundry, ROB, Daycare, MOCs and MOCn.

3. Notify the on-duty or on call Telecommunications staff.

4. Telecommunications will contact the local service carrier and have the main numbers redirected or forwarded to cellular phones as needed.

5. If additional cellular phones are needed, then the hospitals cellular vendor will be immediately contacted.
6. Telecommunications will contact the local service provider to ascertain the
      nature of the problem and how long until service is restored.

7. Monitor news broadcast and press releases for additional status reports.

8. Once local service is restored all cellular phones will be returned to Security.

III. Loss of Long Distance Carrier (Point of Presence)

A. Activation:

1. Administrator on call or Nursing Shift Supervisor will, at their discretion, activate this emergency communication plan and the internal disaster plan by advising the operator to contact, Telecommunications, Security and Maintenance personnel.

B. Response:

1. When a loss of long distance phone service occurs you will not be able to place calls out of state. You will be able to place locals and in-state calls.

2. Notify the on-duty or on-call Telecommunications staff.

3. Telecommunications will contact the long distance carrier to determine the extent of the problem and how long before the problem is corrected. Telecommunications will also check to see if other long distance carriers are affected by the outage.

4. If needed Telecommunications will divert all long distance calls to another long distance carrier by programming the phone system to a different 10xxx code.

5. Monitor news broadcasts for additional status reports.

6. Once long distance service is restored by the carrier, the phone system will be reprogrammed back to the original 10xxx code.

IV. Loss of Power

1. In the event of external power loss from our electrical utility provider, the
      telephone system will continue to function as normal.  The phone system is
      connected to emergency back-up power.  As long as the generator is
      functioning correctly there will be no interruption of service.

2. In the event the in-house generator fails after the external power fails, you will need to switch to the disaster plan. The phone system will not be functional.

V. Catastrophic Disaster

1.  Await instructions form the Incident Command Team.

US Patent Numbers 7,720,998 B2, 7,836,207