Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) has "a Lot" to hide.

No way to know if hospitals are prepared for disaster!?

Nov. 13, 2008, CHICAGO – The findings of a new study published today in the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness journal found that consistent, evidence-based performance measurements are needed to accurately evaluate hospitals’ ability to manage patient care during a disaster.

The study has been released early on the AMA disaster journal Web site and will be published in the journal’s December issue: “Although health care institutions regularly perform quality assessments of routine clinical services, few metrics are available to evaluate the quality of their emergency management initiatives,”

“The need for universally accepted,evidence-based performance measures continues to grow, as hospitals must be able to demonstrate their progress or needs for disaster readiness.”

Health care institutions have invested considerable resources in emergency management preparedness, but because major disasters are rare, they continue to be challenged in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of their emergency programs.

Evidence-based preparedness policies are needed that model current health care quality improvement programs. One way to create such models is to evaluate hospital procedures during times that approach disaster levels.

Traditional hospital quality measures, like wait times and missed diagnoses, can be applied, and the results can be compared to peer hospitals to determine strengths and weaknesses.“It is important that performance standards be established for times of disaster to ensure uniformity across institutions systems, and regions...Ultimately, hospital emergency management strategies are essential to our nation’s preparedness.”

Upon receipt of the pre-publication copy of the report we have forwarded a copy to Mr. James Lott, EVP for Policy Development and Communications for the HASC and requested his comment on the issue, specifically regarding evidence-based performance measures either currently used and/or to be implemented by his member hospitals.

To our shock and surprise the written reply received form Mr. Lot was an angry personal one and did not address the issue: " ...we at HASC are reserved about responding to communications and queries from you."

Unfortunately, we can not separate Mr. Lot an HASC dislike for our Organization, its Leadership, Mission and Values, from the fact that members of the HASC, and HASC itself, are ill-prepared and ignorant while potentially jeopardising the lives and well being of patients, first responders, staff and visitors at their facilities!?

For questions regarding Emergency Preparedness of a particular Hospital in Southern California please call Mr. Lot at (213) 538-0777.

We advocate, you decide!