Effects of the August 2003 blackout on the New York City healthcare delivery system: A lesson for disaster preparedness

Prezant, David J.; Clair, John; Belyaev, Stanislav; Alleyne, Dawn; Banauch, Gisela I.; Davitt, Michelle; Vandervoorts, Kathy; Kelly, Kerry J.; Currie, Brian P.; Kalkut, Gary

doi:10.1097/01.ccm.0000150956.90030.23

Cited by 71 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Many of the calls were due to respiratory device failure, with the recognition that a widespread prolonged outage could have easily overwhelmed EMS's ability to respond. 16 Clearly, there will be far less impact when the capabilities of the response team far exceed the needs of those most affected.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Barriers to At-Home-Preparedness in Public Health Employees: Implications for Disaster Preparedness Training

Blessman

Skupski

Jamil

et al. 2007

Journal of Occupational &Amp; Environmental Medicine

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mentioning

confidence: 97%

Barriers to At-Home-Preparedness in Public Health Employees: Implications for Disaster Preparedness Training

Blessman

Skupski

Jamil

et al. 2007

Journal of Occupational &Amp; Environmental Medicine

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“…Most of these studies focus on the increased use of various health-care sectors during the blackout. For example, an increase in calls to 9-1-1 and emergency services, [3][4][5] including a poison control center, was noted. 6 Klein et al documented that while the power outage increased the utilization of hospitals' emergency services, the effective operation of hospitals was compromised by the loss of power.…”

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confidence: 99%

Health Impact in New York City during the Northeastern Blackout of 2003

et al. 2011

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Objective. This study assessed the health effects of the 2003 Northeastern blackout, the largest one in history, on mortality and hospital admissions due to respiratory, cardiovascular, and renal diseases in New York City (NYC), and compared the disease patterns and sociodemographic profiles of cases during the blackout with those on control days.Method. We investigated the effects of the blackout on health using incidence rate ratios to compare the disease on blackout days (August 14 and 15, 2003) with those on normal and comparably hot days (controls). Normal days were defined as summer days (June-August) between the 25th and 75th percentiles of maximum temperature during 1991-2004. Comparably hot days were days with maximum temperatures in the same range as that of the blackout days. We evaluated the interactive effects of demographics and the blackout using a case-only design.Results. We found that mortality and respiratory hospital admissions in NYC increased significantly (two-to eightfold) during the blackout, but cardiovascular and renal hospitalizations did not. The most striking increases occurred among elderly, female, and chronic bronchitis admissions. We identified stronger effects during the blackout than on comparably hot days. In contrast to the pattern observed for comparably hot days, higher socioeconomic status groups were more likely to be hospitalized during the blackout.Conclusions. This study suggests that power outages may have important health impacts, even stronger than the effects of heat alone. The findings provide some direction for future emergency planning and public health preparedness.

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“…A quarter of the patients in this survey utilized home oxygen programs. Having sufficient oxygen stores is one of the top concerns for hospitals in an emergency [13, 14]. Experience has shown that during electrical outages, regardless of whether the extended outage is caused by natural disaster, individuals on home oxygen therapy flock to hospitals due to not having a backup generator to run their concentrator units or due to not having enough backup oxygen canisters [13-15].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Home Health Patient Assessment Tool for Disaster Planning

et al. 2019

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Background: Historically, older adults have been disproportionately affected by disasters. In particular, homebound adults are especially at risk. As one facet of bolstering community resilience, home health agencies have been tasked with improving their patients’ disaster preparedness. However, home health practitioners often lack the information necessary to fulfill these requirements. Providing resources about disaster preparedness will allow these practitioners, often seen as trusted advisors, to better prepare their patients. Objective: This study explores the utility of implementing a checklist-style assessment tool to guide Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Home-Based Primary Care (HBPC) practitioners in disaster preparedness assessments of their patients. Methods: The HBPC Patient Assessment Tool for Disaster Planning (“Tool”) was fielded by practitioners at 10 VHA HBPC programs with all patients seen over the course of a 3-week period. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis of the data collected via the Tool were used to understand the baseline levels of preparedness education provided by practitioners to their patients. Data from a follow-up survey and follow-up interviews with Program Managers were analyzed, the latter using content analysis methods. Results: 754 surveys were returned for analysis. We examined how frequently practitioners reviewed the included preparedness items with their patients. Of those patients on oxygen, adherence ranged from 67 to 94% for practitioners covering a discussion about smoking materials/open flame, despite strong efforts to achieve high compliance on this measure as reported by several program managers. Of those items applicable to the general population, certain items were more frequently discussed than others. How to activate 911 services was most frequently reviewed (87%). Providing information about emergency shelter registration and specialty transport was the item least frequently reviewed (44%). Strengths about the Tool included its ease of use, flow, comprehensiveness, and that it fits on one page. Conclusion: Home-based care programs, such as the VHA HBPC program, are tasked with supporting the emergency preparedness of their patients, but often do not have the expertise to do so. This study shows that the checklist-like structure of an assessment tool can assist with this role by encouraging practitioners to cover key points with patients and their caregivers.

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Effects of the August 2003 blackout on the New York City healthcare delivery system: A lesson for disaster preparedness

Cited by 71 publications

References 3 publications

Barriers to At-Home-Preparedness in Public Health Employees: Implications for Disaster Preparedness Training

Barriers to At-Home-Preparedness in Public Health Employees: Implications for Disaster Preparedness Training

Health Impact in New York City during the Northeastern Blackout of 2003

Development of a Home Health Patient Assessment Tool for Disaster Planning

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