• JULY 2007 FEATURE ARTICLES •
EDIS
Overcoming
Disaster
Thibodaux Regional Medical Center Takes Action in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
By Reginald Best
Like all medical facilities across the country, healthcare
emergencies bombard Thibodaux Regional
Medical Center every hour of every day. On the
day Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the dedication
of Thibodaux’s doctors and nurses was truly tested.
Located just 55 miles southwest of New Orleans, the
185–bed acute care hospital serves the state of Louisiana
as a regional referral center, and offers a broad array of
inpatient and outpatient care for the people of Lafourche
and seven surrounding parishes. Highly specialized services
offered by the Thibodaux Regional Medical Center include
Cardiology, Heart and Vascular Surgery, Oncology, Neurology,
Neurosurgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and
Orthopedics. Considered to be one of the top hospitals in
the New Orleans area for quality patient care, Thibodaux
Regional consistently ranks high in patient satisfaction and
overall hospital performance.
Emergency Response to Hurricane Katrina
On August 28, 2005, the National Weather Service office in New Orleans issued a warning bulletin predicting
catastrophic damage to the area. 175 mph winds were
recorded shortly before the
storm made landfall, and after
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
ordered a mandatory evacuation,
more than a million people fled the city to the suburbs and
outlying areas. On August 29, the Category 3 storm came
ashore in St. Bernard Parish, near the city of New Orleans.
Several sections of the city’s crucial levee system collapsed and the ensuing floods wiped out homes, businesses, community
centers, roads and hospitals, after which President
Bush declared the area a disaster zone.
The mass exodus from New Orleans hit healthcare facilities
in the surrounding communities particularly hard.
Many evacuees fleeing the massive floods were injured
during their escape, or found themselves otherwise in need
of medical treatment. Adding to the strain caused by the
influx of new patients, several hospitals were left unable
to function and shut down, including Charity Hospital,
New Orleans’ public hospital and only trauma center.
Fortunately, for those caught in the storm’s path and faced
with this shortage of help, Thibodaux Regional Medical
Center was able to respond.
To treat the overload of patients, the hospital teamed
up with the Louisiana Department of Public Health Region
3 Office and created a makeshift hospital at Nicholls
State University. The improvised hospital became a place
to triage patients arriving from the surrounding areas. It
became a safe haven for all sorts of cases, from recent organ
donation recipients to people with asthma and heart
conditions. Groups of patients arrived—most without
medical records—by helicopter and ambulance, even on
foot. Thibodaux Regional Medical Center and the makeshift
“hospital” became a distribution point for thousands
who needed hospitalization.
Makeshift Hospital
Once the temporary hospital was up and running, medical
supplies began to arrive from Thibodaux Regional, as well as neighboring hospitals spared by the storm and the
Red Cross. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists
and clerical personnel showed up at the university to
volunteer. However, treating patients from an improvised
hospital posed serious challenges. One major obstacle was
accessing patient medical records from a remote location
not connected to Thibodaux Regional’s computer network.
Fortunately, Thibodaux Regional was already equipped with
a secure sockets layer virtual private network, a remote
network access technology that lets users access internal
data and applications from any standard Web browser from
any location. Thibodaux Regional uses a solution from
AEP Networks that enables the IT department to set up
network access and group policy enforcement, to ensure
better security and compliance with HIPAA privacy and
security standards.
Thibodaux Regional originally decided to put remote
access technology in place as a way to give referring and
consulting physicians access to its MEDITECH Healthcare
Information System. Using a remote access solution,
doctors can securely sign on to the hospital network and
employ applications from any location, such as private
practices, other hospitals or from their own homes. That
meant no matter where they were, doctors could view
rounds reports, imaging and lab results, conduct patient
care inquiries, monitor patient progress or access the
MEDITECH system.
When Thibodaux Regional set up the temporary triage
hospital at Nicholls State University, it made remote access
available to the doctors working there by adding two
of AEP Networks’ Netilla Security Platform (NSP) units
to the network, along with two additional IP addresses.
Thibodaux Regional also borrowed a PC from the university
on which it installed the MEDITECH client software. Terry
Evans, chief information officer at Thibodaux Regional says,
“It’s not complicated to set up remote access and that’s the
beauty behind it.” With the remote access system rapidly
in place, physicians simply signed onto the Thibodaux Regional
network to access patient records and applications
just as if they were at the main hospital. Because doctors got
quick access to patient information and laboratory results,
turnaround time for patient care was a lot faster than one
would expect at an ad hoc field hospital.
“Being able to connect to Thibodaux Regional’s network
from the makeshift hospital was key,” says Evans.
“Emergency response after the hurricane hit was critical.
If it weren’t for remote network access, doctors wouldn’t
have been able to connect with the hospital. By setting up
remote access, we lessened the life or death situation.”
Lessons in Disaster Preparedness
Though dismantled shortly afterward, the temporary
hospital created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was
a real lesson in disaster recovery. “During Katrina, hospitals were under siege trying to provide victims with medical
attention,” says Evans. Having the right set of network
technologies already in place made it possible for medical
staff at the temporary hospital to connect with Thibodaux
Regional’s system for critical information. Without easy
access to medical applications and data, the process would
have been significantly slower making it harder for doctors
to treat the thousands of patients who needed help.
After seeing the number of patients displaced by
Hurricane Katrina, Evans says having the capability to
establish a hospital anywhere during an emergency is
essential. “Because there are other local hospitals using
the NSP/MEDITECH environment, we can quickly port
our data and provide access through their network in the
event our facilities are affected by other storms,” says
Evans. “With each new hurricane season, I’m reminded
of how helpful remote access was during the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.”
The mass exodus from New Orleans hit
healthcare facilities in the surrounding
communities particularly hard. Many evacuees
fleeing the massive floods were injured during
their escape, or found themselves otherwise
in need of medical treatment.
After the storm dissipated, the full scale of what happened
to New Orleans and its residents became clear. Hurricane
Katrina was the costliest, and one of the deadliest,
natural disasters in U.S. history. The death toll was over
1400, with damages estimated as high as $200 billion. With
the director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicting
a busy 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, Thibodaux
Regional and other Louisiana medical centers are preparing
for emergency and disaster situations. Besides setting up
remote access, general communication within and between
the medical centers has increased and improved, says Evans.
Thibodaux has put a sophisticated back–up system in
place to make sure its MEDITECH data is accessible from
any Web browser. In addition, trained personnel now use
HAM radio and cell phones on two different towers to
avoid dependency on any one system. Though Thibodaux
Regional hopes it will never have to weather another storm
like Hurricane Katrina, it will be ready.