Little done to prevent misuse of ‘internal disaster’

It’s been one year since people were diverted from UMC on Oct. 1, but county policy remains unchanged. UMC issued an “internal disaster” alert that night, telling ambulance drivers to avoid the hospital. It apparently contributed to the erroneous dispatch that UMC was “completely out of beds.” The alert wasn’t intended for mass casualty incidents, but neither hospital nor local health officials plan to erect policy changes to preclude its use during them. Instead, the health district is relying on a technical change to the computer system on which the alert runs. And UMC instituted an extra sign-off on capacity notifications. “(‘Internal disaster’) must be available for hospitals to use at all times,” a UMC spokeswoman said in an email. “The codes provide important notifications to both EMS and area hospitals regarding hospital status.”