Florida Health Care Association issues report on protecting elders during hurricanes
A newly issued report titled “Caring for Vulnerable Elders During aDisaster: National Findings of the 2007 Nursing Home Hurricane Summit,”contains ten agreed upon key recommendations to improve how frail andelderly citizens are cared for during a major disaster.
The report, funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation, is a resultof two years of research and two planning summits where state, federal,and local emergency planning teams, including representatives fromFEMA, CMS, and HHS, shared information and ideas with nursing homeleadership.
“We all agree that integrating the needs of the elderly intoregional emergency planning processes can save lives.” said LuMariePolivka-West of the Florida Healthcare Association, which convened theHurricane Summits of 2006 and 2007 that led to the development of thereport. “Now, with a greater understanding of everyone’s needs, we havedeveloped better solutions to care for our most vulnerable citizens.”
The CDC determined that the elderly accounted 70 percent of thedeaths in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, with at least 139storm-related fatalities having occurred in nursing homes.
Some of the key recommendations include:
- Nursing homes must be incorporated into disaster response systems at all levels–national, state, and local.
- Disaster response systems, including Emergency Operations Centers(EOCs), must designate nursing homes as “health care” facilities. Thesefacilities must receive the same priority status for restoration ofutilities (e.g., power, phone service) as hospitals, and may needenhanced police protection during community recovery.
- Shelter in place, when possible, and harden the physical plant to withstand hurricane winds and provide emergency power.
- Long-term care providers must know their storm surge/flood zone,the capacity of the facility’s infrastructure to withstand hurricanewinds, and must develop viable plans for evacuation or sheltering inplace in accordance with their facility’s risk.