Our December 2020 Newsletter features:
On September 16, 2016 CMS issued their “Final Rule” on their new Emergency Preparedness Program Requirements, and have made it clear that by November 15, 2017 facilities should be compliant. In fact, earlier this year CMS issued S&C 17-21 (click to read) that gave clear direction that provider’s first “annual” training and testing requirements must be complete by the implementation date November 15, 2017 (one year after adoption). No exceptions.
Training, testing and other annual requirements that must be accomplished by November 15, 2017 include:
Russell Phillips & Associates (RPA) has been awarded a contract to complete catastrophic surge and evacuation assessments for 60 hospitals by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response. The project includes surge capacity, transportation evacuation planning, and a ‘categories of care’ resource tool to support decision-making processes. This follows a survey of 44 hospitals in the state over 2015/16. Click here for more
After years in the making, the Department of Health & Human Services made it official…CMS will be adopting the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code® (NFPA 101), thus replacing the existing reference to the 2000 edition.
To review the key changes you should be aware of, along with the support services we provide to enhance compliance, Click Here.
Tumwater, WA
The Washington State Department of Health (WA DOH) Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response has contracted with consulting firm Russell Phillips & Associates to provide a statewide “playbook” for decision-making through an Intrastate Healthcare System Coordination Plan. This includes working with key hospitals throughout the State on Surge Capacity, Transportation Evacuation planning, and a Categories of Care resource tool to support this decision-making process.
RPA is rolling out a new web-based emergency management and emergency reporting module that we plan to offer hospitals later this year (long-term care in 2017). We believe this module will provide hospitals with a powerful technology tool to help prepare for and manage a disaster response. This system was designed around helping a health system fully manage a disaster from the clinical unit up to the Command Center at each hospital and then across the health system. RPA has engaged an independent research firm, Spectrum Associates, and in early March they will be hosting three small focus group sessions: one in Boston, Hartford, and Rochester. The system is currently being Beta tested at an 11-hospital health system and we look forward to updating our clients on progress as we prepare to roll this out.
Dave Hood was recently elected to serve as an Assistant Fire Chief in the Honeoye Falls FD, a suburban fire department outside of Rochester, NY. While RPA team members carry a busy professional schedule, many like Dave enjoy supporting the safety of their local communities.
On November 12, RPA facilitated the first disaster exercise of the 50 nursing homes in Connecticut’s Region 2. The exercise simulated the evacuation of 2 nursing homes and involved the movement of mock residents to multiple locations. A Long Term Care Coordinating Center was established at Masonicare Health Center to coordinate resident placement and tracking, as well as facilitate facility resource needs.
In 2012, Superstorm Sandy forced the evacuation of three nursing homes in CT’s Region 2. Striving to use this experience to inform future planning, they joined the CT Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan (LTC-MAP), completing the participation of all 231 licensed nursing homes in CT. This plan also includes 24 Assisted Living Communities and 11 hospitals (www.mutualaidplan.org/ct).
Both Scott Aronson and Jim Garrow are presenting at the NHCPC where RPA is also a Silver Sponsor for this years’ conference. The firm will be rolling out a demonstration of the RPA Navigator product at the conference. This Software as a Service (SaaS) product is currently in Beta testing with a multi-hospital system as the next evolution of the Mutual Aid Plan technology products released in 2008. The first module being released is the Emergency Management module and it will be followed by the Life Safety module in 2016.
Dave Hood presents at the NYSHFA/NYSCAL 2015 Fall Education Conference & Trade Show
Life Safety Code® Hot Topics —Survey Findings
This session will highlight the top 10 life safety-related survey findings in NYS and discuss trends and mechanisms to mitigate them. It is expected that within the year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) will adopt the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code®. While we wait for formal adoption, CMS has provided the opportunity to apply a number of provisions in the 2012 Code now through the concept of “categorical waivers.” This session will look at the major changes impacting long term care in the 2012 Code. It will also outline the process for utilizing categorical waivers.
Andy McGuire elected as Vice President of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) – USA Region 1 Board of Directors for 2016-17. Congratulations Andy!
Paul Dzurinda and Colin McKay Earn Certified Fire Protection Specialist (CFPS) Designation. Great job Paul and Colin!
The CFPS Board credential is an internationally recognized mark of achievement within the fire protection field. This group of professionals includes risk managers, loss control specialists, fire officers, fire marshals, fire inspectors, safety managers, fire protection consultants, designers, code enforcers, loss prevention professionals, building code officials, commercial real estate managers and others who have responsibilities dealing with the application of fire safety, fire protection, prevention, and suppression technologies. Visit NFPA.org for more information.
National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness Conference (NHCPC)
Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, San Diego, CA
December 1-3
CT ACHCA and CAHCF – Educational Conference & Trade Show
Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, 100 Berlin Road, Cromwell, CT
November 18
Mass Senior Care 2015 Annual Meeting and Trade Show
DCU Center, 50 Foster Street, Worcester, MA
November 12
Russell Phillips & Associates, LLC (RPA) and MSL Healthcare Partners, Inc. (MSL) have signed a national strategic partnership to provide accreditation and compliance services to their joint client base. Both organizations bring a high level of special expertise to provide fire, life safety, environment of care, emergency management, code compliance and other safety services to the healthcare industry. Click here to read more.
Russell Phillips & Associates, LLC (RPA) and MSL Healthcare Partners, Inc. (MSL) have signed a national strategic partnership to provide accreditation and compliance services to their joint client base. Both organizations bring a high level of special expertise to provide fire, life safety, environment of care, emergency management, code compliance and other safety services to the healthcare industry. Click here to read more.
On October 17, 2013, David Hood provided a webinar for the members of LeadingAge Kansas. The presentation, Building Emergency Evacuation: Best Practices Through Real Life Situations, focused on the evacuation lessons learned in recent disasters including Hurricane Katrina, Super Storm Sandy, and the Joplin Tornado. Participants learned about the essential components of a comprehensive evacuation procedure, best practice resident tracking tools, evacuation equipment, and how to assess transportation needs, among other evacuation related topics.
RPA has announced the promotion of Nick Gabriele to the position of Vice President. In his years with the firm, Nick has displayed leadership qualities in dealing with our staff, the management team and clients. Nick has proven leadership qualities from his days as a career Fire Chief and past recognition with several Life Saving Awards and the CT Governor’s Service Award. “Nick brought a unique mix of professionalism, hard work and a high level of competency to RPA from day 1” said Scott Aronson, Principal of the firm. “This was a natural progression and Nick is filling a critical role to position RPA as an industry leader today and in the future.”
Congratulations to David Hood, President of RPA, for being voted in as the Chair of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Health Care Section Executive Board. This was voted on at the June 2013 NFPA Conference.
RPA is invested in supporting the codes and standards process with the National Fire Protection Association and this is demonstrated through the different committees we sit on with the NFPA:
Please click here to see the first updates by the new NFPA Health Care Section Executive Board Chair on NFPA Today.
On Tuesday, September 24, 2013, Scott Aronson joined senior leaders from the New Jersey Department of Health, Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Connecticut Department of Public Health for the keynote address at the AHFSA Conference in Denver, CO. The panel presented on State Survey Agency experiences from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the multi-state efforts for mutual aid planning with healthcare facilities in Massachusetts and Connecticut (now including Rhode Island for southern New England operations).
1) Jennifer Gallivan – Jennifer joined RPA after serving as an Executive Assistant at Terphane in Bloomfield, NY where she supported the General Manager, the Human Resources Manager and other senior-level team members and provided coordination of the company’s quality system and the administration of ISO document-control procedures. Prior to that, Jennifer enjoyed teaching High School English to students in grades 9 – 11 at Palmyra-Macedon High School. Jennifer holds a Master of Science degree in General Education and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English both from Nazareth College of Rochester.
On May 9-10, 2012 Scott Aronson, Principal for Russell Phillips & Associates, will be presenting at the Washington State Hospital Association’s Third Annual Disaster Conference in Wenatchee, WA. He will be presenting on the following topics:
RPA led the Massachusetts Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan (MassMAP) and the Connecticut Region 3 (Capitol Region) Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan (LTC-MAP) as they conducted mock facility evacuation and other emergency scenarios in more than 486 regional long term care facilities (349 of these are plan members) during the second and last weeks of June, 2012. View the media coverage
Darren Osleger, a Fire and Emergency Management Consultant with Russell Phillips & Associates, conducted vital fire training focusing on fire procedures at North Hill (Needham, MA), a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). Click here to listen to a brief radio broadcast from WBZ News Radio 1030.
Dave Hood, Principal of Russell Phillips & Associates, conducted a surgical fire training program at Brighton Surgery Center (Brighton, NY). Due to the number of surgical fires in the nation, Russell Phillips & Associates has dedicated staff to the training of surgical teams nationwide in order to prevent surgical fires and to respond quickly in case of a fire emergency in the operating room. This training focuses on prevention, response and actual experience with hands-on demonstrations. Click here to watch the televised newscast from WHEC–TV News 10.
In the Eye on Health Care section of the NFPA Journal’s May/June 2012 edition, Dave Hood, Principal of Russell Phillips & Associates, takes the healthcare industry through some major changes being tackled at the conference for the 2012 editions of NFPA 101® Life Safety Code and NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code.? Dave moderated the Health Care Hot Topics and AHJ Interpretations session during the NFPA 2012 Conference and Expo held in Las Vegas, NV. The session included two key speakers: George Mills, Director of The Joint Commission’s Department of Engineering, and James Merrill, Life Safety Specialist for CMS. The session focused on the following areas:
On June 2, 2011 Scott Aronson, Principal of Russell Phillips & Associates, presents on pediatric Hospital Evacuation and Surge Capacity Planning. The goal of the conference is to discuss, facilitate and identify the challenges, tools, and plans for the response to a pediatric healthcare disaster.
Starting on April 25, 2011 John Nolan, Senior Consultant for Russell Phillips & Associates, presented National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Life Safety Code® seminars for NHC in Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee. The seminars addressed compliance with NFPA 101® and all reference chapters. Additional focuses within the seminars were on Inspection, Testing and Maintenance of fire protection systems.
On April 13, 2011 Nick Gabriele, Manager of the New England Region Office, presented on Effective Emergency Operation Planning to long term care facilities from throughout New England. The seminar focused on the impact of recent disasters on Long Term Care Facilities. The discussion was based on how to develop customized plans that address six key elements of an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), being communications, resources and assets, Safety and Security, Staff Responsibilities and Tasks, Managing Utilities, and Managing Resident Clinical and Support Activities.
Scott Aronson, a Principal in Russell Phillips & Associates, presented on surgical fires at the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) in Denver, CO. With more than 10 surgical fires per week, this special session will bring to light proven techniques for prevention and management of surgical fires. Participants will also have the opportunity to go through hands-on fire suppression and evacuation exercises that will take place throughout the day at the convention center. AORN promotes quality patient care by providing its members with education, standards, services, and representation. AORN is composed of 40,000 perioperative registered nurses in approximately 6,700 hospitals and 3,500 ambulatory surgery centers in all 50 states and around the world.
David Hood, a Principal and President of Russell Phillips & Associates, and Richard Fasano, Western Region Manager, presented on full building evacuation and regional Mutual Aid Planning to hospitals throughout the State of Mississippi in this one (1) day workshop. Participants received a Full Building Evacuation Best Practices Guide on CD to support their internal efforts to improve their ability to plan and execute the evacuation of a hospital or other care facility.
On June 7 -10, 2010 Nick Gabriele, Manager of the New England Region Office for Russell Phillips & Associates, co-presented with Mr. Joseph Laveneziana, Director of Safety & Security at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, on Developing a Comprehensive Health Care Facility Full Building Evacuation Plan. The seminar will detail the important components of a Healthcare Facility Full Building Evacuation Plan and the important aspects of implementing and exercising the plan along with community partners and other healthcare facilities. These lessons learned are based on a successful partnership in implementing the plans at St. Vincent’s Medical Center.
Russell Phillips & Associates has been contracted by CRCOG to customize the Connecticut Region III Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan (LTC-MAP) for Evacuation and Supply Resources, which establishes a course of action and an agreed commitment among participating nursing homes to assist each other as needed in the time of a disaster. Assistance may come in the form of:
This project is being managed by the Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), a regional planning organization located in Hartford which serves the 41 communities located in the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) Region III for homeland security and public safety planning needs. The project will be funded through federal Urban Area Security Initiative dollars and will be designed based upon the 78 nursing homes in Region III. A Task Force and Special Expertise Committees are being formed to support the design of this plan and will include the nursing homes, CRCOG, Department of Public Health, CANPFA, CAHCF, the Capitol Region Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) and emergency responders from the region (Fire, EMS, Police, and Emergency Managers). Please visit www.mutualaidplan.org.
In 2009, Public Health-Seattle & King County contracted Russell Phillips & Associates and embarked on a project to plan for the evacuation of the neonatal and pediatric patient hospital population due to an isolated, regional or catastrophic disaster. The planning included identification of the precise levels of care provided across multiple states and British Columbia, methods of transport for High Acuity Patients (ECMO, Oscillator, Vent) from a Level III NICU across to special Pediatric Intensive Care Patients, Med/Surg and Behavioral Health. Planning then evolved to make critical decisions on patient distribution strategies using a Health & Medical Area Command and escalated to the catastrophic planning elements of having a failure of multiple hospitals in the area. This focused on turning certain acute care hospitals with current pediatric capabilities into Pediatric Disaster Surge Hospitals. A review of equipment, staffing, transportation resources, suppliers/vendors and other special support entities was conducted with information being managed through the Healthcare Coalition and Public Health.
Adventist Health System has contracted with Russell Phillips & Associates for a 5-year agreement to provide fire safety training and support to 30 hospitals and 16 nursing homes in 8 states. This is an extension of the longest corporate partnership in the history of Russell Phillips & Associates that dates back to 1977.
Nick Gabriele, Manager of the New England Region Office for Russell Phillips & Associates, presented on “Healthcare Occupancies – A code enforcement and evacuation challenge”. Participants were Authorities Having Jurisdiction from across the New England states, and the presentation focused on the most common deficiencies identified in healthcare occupancies and commonly misunderstood code issues. It also introduced these “local AHJs” to the Joint Commission and CMS accreditation process and reviewed essential and effective Fire Procedures and Evacuation Plans for healthcare occupancies.
Scott Aronson was named to the Hartford Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Award for 2009. This award focused on leaders in the Greater Hartford area who are commitment to business growth, personal excellence and deep community involvement.
Russell Phillips & Associates has been contracted through MassMAP to create a mutual aid plan for evacuation and supply resources for the 790 long term care facilities (Nursing Home, Assisted Living and Rest Homes) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This project is a collaborative effort between the long term care associations (MassAging, MA Senior Care and MassALFA), the Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and the long term care facilities across the Commonwealth. For more information on MassMAP, please visit www.massmap.org.
Paul McManus and David Hood presented at the FDIC conference in Indianapolis on “Healthcare Firefighting Strategies and Tactics” in relation to incidents in Hospitals, Nursing and Adult Homes.
Information presented included the levels of care at each type of facility, fire department crucial actions when responding to an actual fire, fire department preplanning and what they should look for in reviewing facility-specific fire procedures.
Russell Phillips, a Principal and Founder at Russell Phillips & Associates, was honored by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) at they recognize individuals for outstanding service to the organization in the development of codes and standards. Russ was one of 35 individuals to receive this special award at the World Safety Conference in June 2006.
David Hood presented on Healthcare Firefighting Strategies & Tactics for the Connecticut Fire Academy at the Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, CT. This program focused on improving communication and pre-planning between healthcare facilities and the fire service, reviewing case studies of recent healthcare fires and actions taken by the facility, addressing unique patient population within hospitals and nursing homes, and incorporating practical exercises for suppression of a fire on the patient and evacuation techniques for the room, smoke compartment and floor.
Richard Fasano, Western Region Manager for Russell Phillips & Associates, presented on Full Building Evacuation at the American Society for Healthcare Engineering conference in Anaheim, CA. This program reviews a healthcare facility evacuation while providing information on methods to design, train and test your evacuation plan. Russell Phillips & Associates has been involved in the review of facility evacuations dating back to 1982 when 400 patients were forced from their nursing home.
Russell Phillips & Scott Aronson joined with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and volunteered to review the impact of Hurricane Katrina on nursing homes and hospitals in Mississippi and Louisiana. The outcomes of this review were presented at the 2007 International Summit on Healthcare Planning, Design and Construction (PDC).
