Hudson Valley hospitals sign M/A agreement

[Guest hoss]

Region's hospitals to join forces in the event of a disaster

By MELISSA KLEIN AND JANE LERNER

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original Publication: March 9, 2006)

The mutual-aid agreement signed by 34 hospitals in the seven-county Hudson Valley region includes the following provisions

• If a disaster or emergency is declared at one hospital, all hospitals will assess their ability to offer help.

• An authorized administrator at each hospital can offer or request help.

• Staff may be loaned to another hospital and will be supervised by that hospital.

• The receiving hospital will assume legal responsibility for personnel and equipment from the donor hospital. The recipient hospital will reimburse the donor hospital for costs.

Hudson Valley hospitals that normally compete zealously for patients have decided to share medicine, staff and supplies should there be a major flu outbreak, power failure or other disaster.

All hospitals in the seven-county region — 34 in total — have signed a mutual-aid agreement to respond to emergencies. The agreement, which was announced yesterday, is said to be the second of its kind in the state.  CAST YOUR VOTE

The aid pact was put together by the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, an industry group, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Participating hospitals are in Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Sullivan, Ulster and Orange counties.

"The one message that we seemed to get loud and clear from our colleagues in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, is that in the event of a real crisis, that first day or two at least, communities are on their own," Joel Seligman, president of Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco and the association's chairman, said at a press conference at the hospital.

The agreement sets up a framework for handling such issues as credentials for doctors, supervision of borrowed staff, transportation for evacuated patients and financial liability.

"You might even have beds brought from one facility to another, which you should look at in advance," said John Federspiel, president of Hudson Valley Hospital Center in Cortlandt. "Not all the beds are compatible with the electrical systems."

Dr. Michael Sama, medical director of Putnam Hospital Center in Carmel, said it was good to have the agreement in place, particularly because his hospital is the only one in Putnam County.

"It's very isolating," he said. "You really can't share resources between institutions."

Walter Dusseldorp, the safety officer at Nyack Hospital who worked on the mutual-aid plan, said in a telephone interview that the hospital has long had transfer agreements with other nearby institutions, including Good Samaritan in Suffern and several acute-care facilities in neighboring Bergen County, N.J.

"But that agreement didn't really take into account an emergency that affects the whole region," he said.

Among those emergencies is an influenza pandemic. Health officials are concerned that a strain of avian flu, circulating among poultry and birds in Asia and Europe, could mutate into a form that would easily infect people.

Earlier yesterday, Westchester County Health Commissioner Joshua Lipsman said there could be between 120 and 1,300 influenza hospitalizations a week in the county if there was an outbreak. Lipsman updated members of the county Board of Legislators on Westchester's flu preparedness plan.

All counties must prepare a pandemic plan by the summer. Hospitals also are required to have plans in place for an influx of patients.

Because hospitals could be easily overwhelmed, Putnam County is working on putting together kits to help home health agencies care for sick residents.

"If we had a real surge of people being taken care of in their own homes, we would at least have the supplies," said Loretta Molinari, the associate health commissioner in Putnam.

Neil Abitabilo, president of the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, said at the Northern Westchester press conference that whether hospitals could handle an increase of 1,300 patients a week depended on the circumstances of the time.

"In theory, you can do it. But so much depends on what's going on at the instant it happens, and how sick are those people," he said.

Seligman said the mutual-aid agreement would help.

"The idea of any one county absorbing 1,200 or 1,300 patients is hard to imagine," he said. "The idea of seven counties absorbing it is not hard to imagine."