A provider asked about power outages in some sections of the hospital on Dec. 31, its effect on patients and how the planned outage was communicated. Cindy Wagner, director of facilities, provided the following response:
The scheduled power outage on Dec. 31 affected only the center tower of Building B from the basement through the roof. The only patient care areas affected were 3W and dialysis. Extensive communication occurred with the management of all impacted areas.
The work was done to improve the electrical reliability of Building B, which is a good thing for all building occupants. We completed several highly coordinated, scheduled power shutdowns in the last two weeks to transfer power for Building B from old equipment to the new equipment recently installed. This means Building B is powered from the central energy plant, not from aging infrastructure specific to Building B.
We find it much more effective to communicate directly with affected departments because there is so much coordination that has to occur. It often creates more confusion than clarity when we broadcast this information.
In the future we will consider posting information like this to the Daily Dose.
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