By Healthcare Facilities Today

While the recent Georgia snowfall may have caught some people off guard, Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton had its emergency management plan in operation long before the first snowflake fell, according to an article on the Times-Georgian website.

“There’s policies and plans for every kind of emergency. This is not our first big snow and a lot of people here have endured this before,” said Janet Smith, Tanner’s director of emergency management, safety and security.

The main focus of the hospital’s emergency plan is to have enough staff on hand to operate the hospital and care for the patients. That becomes a major chore when many employees live far from the hospital or in remote locations that become impassible during snow and ice, the article said.

The hospital’s engineering department plays a major role in emergencies such as last week’s snow, helping personnel get to their jobs.

“We work closely with the administration and emergency management, who pass down their staffing needs,” said Frank Cole, Tanner’s assistant director of engineering. “We try to get to them and get them to the hospital.”

Cole said engineering began early Tuesday morning, filling every four-wheel-drive vehicle with fuel, so they could be used to pick up nurses, physicians and all other employees needed to keep the hospital in operation.

Tanner brought security officers to help with the transportation and crews were also working around the clock to de-ice the parking lots and make sure the helipads were open if they were needed to fly patients in and out, the article said.

They used nearly a ton of ice melting chemicals to clear the 1.7 million square feet of hospital campus space at the facilities in Carrollton, Bremen and Villa Rica.

Read the article.