SCWIHERC February 6, 2024 Membership Meeting Notes
Meeting Recording:
Passcode: see email from Jennifer February 7.
Hospital:
Dave Larson (Madison VA) recapped a recent internal flood event. Lessons learned: do frontline staff know who the correct person to contact in an emergency (is this easily found in the emergency response guide?) It is important to assess the situation yourself to verify incident and inform response (just how big and impactful is the flood?) Can you repurpose unoccupied clinical spaces to move a unit rather than evacuating or going on diversion? Think about this ahead of time.
Review ASPR TRACIE Utility Failures in Healthcare Toolkit: https://files.asprtracie.hhs.gov/documents/utility-failures-in-health-care-toolkit-summary.pdf
Match Survey: Every year, we ask you to report any exercises sponsored by your facility and any significant real events affecting your facility that resulted in the activation of your EOP to our Match survey. ASPR requires that Wisconsin HERCs match10% of our grant funding award every year, and we do this by capturing in-kind efforts in the form of preparedness and response work you do within your own facility, so thank you for your assistance with this! Survey link: https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3321278/WHEPP-Exercise-and-Real-Event-Report-F-02007-06-2022
MRSE Prep: Final deadline for hospitals to register is Monday, February 12, to allow facilitator to create paper patient profiles for each participating hospital. There will be injects related to family reunification again this year, think about using EMTrack to help with this function. If you want to use EMTrack, please review this video, and reach out to me a week ahead of time to ensure EMTrack user access, and if you need dummy tracking numbers (rather than using your own triage tags). Video: https://youtu.be/LOFIUfGBwAA
Discussion question: Why are hospitals (inpatient units and EDs) so full right now? Hard to discharge to post-acute care impacting throughput/causing backups all the way to the ED, staffing impacting how many units can be open to patients, respiratory season, hard to transfer to higher level of care/psych, Medicaid unwinding impacting primary care availability, also leading to decompensation and increased ED traffic, silver tsunami (Baby Boomer retirements combined with increased need for care). Is this our new normal post-COVID? COVID exposed fragility of healthcare system. Highlighting lack of viable solutions to these problems without systemic changes to policy and reimbursement, which leads us to…
Northwest Wisconsin closure of two hospitals (Sacred Heart Eau Claire and St. Joe’s Chippewa Valley) and 19 clinics. This closure closes a level III trauma center, and will leave two hospitals in Eau Claire. EMResource data from last year shows all three Eau Claire hospitals spending more than half of the time at peak census for hospital census. Also impacts rehab hospital, adult and child psych, referral lab and imaging svcs, home care and hospice, numerous other services. Already seeing major impacts in that healthcare market and beyond, because some services already ceasing even though final closure date is April. Related media articles:
https://www.weau.com/2024/01/30/data-reveals-financial-situations-chippewa-valley-hospitals/
https://www.weau.com/2024/01/30/reimbursement-challenges-wisconsin-hospitals/
Next Hospital Forum March 20 at noon.
Membership:
HVA Survey due February 21.
Nurses Respond Now course and scholarships still available, see email from Jennifer on January 4.
We are approaching budgeted limit for SCWIHERC scholarships, submit soon if you wish to be considered. See email from Jennifer on November 3.
UW Health has resources to support Stop the Bleed training, you can borrow equipment and provide your own instructors, or request their instructors. See attached flyer.
Upcoming Trainings: review email from Jennifer February 1, BDLS/ADLS in 4 weeks! We have three seats remaining for our region, reach out to Jennifer to register. WI DHS will also be hosting an EMResource and EMTrack live training on February 13 at noon, this is a great opportunity for a refresher or to train new staff. Register here: https://events.gcc.teams.microsoft.com/event/1ba3b6f4-f488-4c6d-83f3-d88c014f7a46@f4e2d11c-fae4-453b-b6c0-2964663779aa
Cybersecurity Workshop- one offering April 23-24 in Oshkosh, and another offering pending venue confirmation, likely Menomonie in June. This offering is heavily tailored to healthcare, but we can accommodate local government that supports public health, EM, EMS if they can send the required team. To be eligible to register, an organization will have to commit to sending a team of four on the first day (TTX) to include IT/cyber lead(s), operational leader, emergency manager/business continuity plan writer, and one ancillary services rep. Team of two needed for second day (business continuity plan development), to include operational leader and emergency manager/business continuity plan writer. Organizations are strongly encouraged to designate backups for their teams to fully leverage this opportunity, in case unforeseen emergencies prevent a team member from attending.. To be equitable, registration will be limited to one per healthcare system. Official registration email will be shared when venue contract is confirmed for second workshop. Our region has 6 organization slots for Oshkosh offering, and 3 organization slots for Menomonie offering.
Exercises update:
Medical Response and Surge Exercise on February 27, hospitals please invite your local PH/EM/EMS into your command center to strengthen local relationships and work through collaborative injects in the exercise! Registration link for exercise participants (hospitals also need to respond separately if they are playing to receive paper patients): https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqduiupz8tE9c1lysrgNc0eargHbMnTh1-#/registration
Chemical Surge Annex plan review and related TTX will be the topic of May 7 SCWIHERC meeting. In person and virtual options will be provided.
Update to Power Outage exercise: initially we had planned to offer this as a tabletop exercise with one really large group, but the staffing cost to support this is cost-prohibitive. We are now asking county Emergency Managers to host locally, and connect to virtual facilitation, so participants still have the benefit of local networking and collaboration in person with fellow local responders, and we can still offer this exercise within our budget. This offering is not a grant requirement, but a high priority for us with power outage ranking #2 on our regional HVA. Utilizing carryover funding opportunity to bring this to you because it is too costly for our current base budget, and that carryover funding expires June 30. We are reviewing proposals and will get an exercise save the date out as soon as a facilitator is selected.
Speakers:
Strategic National Stockpile and Chempack:
Kay Mittelstadt-Lock and Curtis Hedman, WI DHS Kay.mittelstadtlock@dhs.wisconsin.gov Curtis.Hedman@dhs.wisconsin.gov
Slides are attached. Also refer to this guidance on Fourth Generation Agents:
https://chemm.hhs.gov/nerveagents/FGA.htm
https://chemm.hhs.gov/nerveagents/FGA_Safety_Awareness_Bulletin_508.pdf
https://chemm.hhs.gov/nerveagents/FGA_Reference_Guide_508.pdf
https://chemm.hhs.gov/nerveagents/FGA_Medical_Management_Guidelines_508.pdf
Republican National Convention Update:
Michelle McKinney michelle.mckinney@dhs.wisconsin.gov
RNC Hospital Checklist should be available very soon and will be shared at that time, will be discussed at future SCWIHERC Hospital Forums. Our region should anticipate impacts from RNC activities!
ATT FirstNet Update:
Aaron Midthun Aaron.Midthun@ATT.com 715-559-9057
Refer to meeting recording for full details from speakers.
Sharing resources from the National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness Conference, which four SCWIHERC reps attended:
HIGHLY recommend Miami Dade LE Active Shooter video (12 minutes), to engage your leadership and local law enforcement on the threat of active threat inside a healthcare facility!
Pediatric Readiness:
https://www.chawisconsin.org/initiatives/emergency-care/emergency-department-readiness/
https://www.chawisconsin.org/initiatives/emergency-care/pre-hospital-readiness/
https://wrap-em.org/index.php/jit-resources/pediatric-surge-playbook
https://www.npdcoalition.org/resources/
https://pedspandemicnetwork.org/
ASPR TRACIE Utility Failures in Healthcare Toolkit: https://files.asprtracie.hhs.gov/documents/utility-failures-in-health-care-toolkit-summary.pdf
Get to know your NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist and get on their weather alert distro list: NWS Milwaukee: timothy.j.halbach@noaa.gov
PsySTART: https://www4.psystart.net/
Miami Dade LE Active Shooter in Hospitals video: https://www.mdchpc.org/resources.html
Pathways to Health Equity: https://webassets.nationalacademies.org/healthequity/
Meeting attendance:
Marcus Walden- MMC Beaver Dam
Nathan Bubenzer- Meriter UPH
Sarah Jensen- Marquette County HD
Jane Lentz-Gervais- Adams County EM
Dave Kitkowski- St. Clare Baraboo and SCWIHERC
Alaina Landerud- St. Mary’s Madison
Belle Koch- Sauk Prairie Healthcare
Angie Cohen- Grant Regional Health Center
Jim Abitz- Southwest Health Platteville
Jeff Kindrai- Grant County HD
Anthony Rauterberg- Watertown FD
Mile Bluff Medical Center
Brent Skiba- Watertown RMC
Dan Perdue- SSM Health
Gary Trulson- UW Health
Mary Tessendorf- Monroe Hospital
Sam LaMuro- Fort HealthCare
Mike Stephens- Fort HealthCare and SCWIHERC
Colleen Wilson- Waupun Memorial
Dave Larson- Madison VA
Steve Haskell- UW Health
Tammy Kingery- Gundersen Moundview
Leanne Seifert- Watertown RMC
Carmen Luther- Reedsburg AMC and SCWIHERC
Sean Madison- NIPARC
Lori Mertens Pelliteri- Dean Clinics
Keith Hurlbert- Upland Hills Health
Christal Foreyt- Gundersen Boscobel
Jodi Moyer- Beloit Health System
Brian Allen- Southwest Health Platteville
Brooke Fuchs- Rainbow Hospice
Lynn Skatrud- Green County HD
Cody Kowalke- Reedsburg AMC
Carmen Carpenter- Iowa County HD
Gary Ziegler- Green County HD
Jodie Molitor- Sauk County HD
Ken Van Horn- PH Madison and Dane County
Jessie Phalen- Sauk County HD
Josh Kowalke- Reedsburg Ambulance and SCWIHERC
Victoria Parker- Watertown HD
Kimberley Spurgeon- Family Health La Clinica
Michael Niles- Rock County HD
Erin Hastert- Lafayette County HD
Kara Takes- Unified Therapy
Michelle Sullivan- Unified Therapy
Mike Lohmeier- SCWIHERC and UW Health
Kay Mittelstadt-Lock- WI DHS
Curtis Hedman- WI DHS
Jason Witte-WI DHS
Michelle McKinney-WI DHS
Hannah Segaloff- WI DHS
Aaron Midthun- ATT FirstNet
Jennifer Behnke-SCWIHERC