Incident Command Center showcased at University Medical Center at Princeton
By Nick Norlen
Staff Writer
Officials of The University Medical Center at Princeton believe they are now prepared for all the situations they hope will never happen.
Princeton HealthCare System held an open house Friday for its newly completed Incident Command Center, a first-floor meeting room that can be arranged within minutes to serve as a command post for hospital administrators, security and doctors to handle any emergency.
Facets of the center include direct lines to the State Police, inside and outside phone lines, laptops, TVs, maps of the area, bed availability charts and emergency lighting and power provided by a generator system.
According to Emergency Preparedness Chairman Ryan Wismer, who is also the administrative director at Merwick Rehab Hospital & Nursing Care, the structured system was the result of a post-Sept. 11 federal directive that led to a state executive order creating a clear chain of command in hospitals during emergencies.
The system designates detailed job descriptions for specific titles — identical in all hospitals — that are all headed by an “incident commander.”
With each hospital using the same titles, there’s “no confusion about who has the authority to make decisions,” Mr. Wismer said. “It needed to be an across-the-board program so everyone was speaking the same language and had the same terminology.”
The command center provides resources for staffers to track the availability of beds, isolation rooms and equipment like dialysis machines and ventilators.
The objective is to use the available resources in the most efficient way, Mr. Wismer said.
To test the system, the hospital recently conducted drills with other hospitals that simulated an influx of patients resulting from an E. coli outbreak.
But the center can also be used for events like snowstorms or floods, which can cause staff shortages, he said, because dealing with patients starts with making sure there’s enough personnel on hand.
”If you tell people there’s a smallpox or an anthrax or a mass casualty incident, they may not be inclined to come to work either, especially if they think they’re coming to chaos,” he said.
For that reason, part of the training that is being conducted along with the center’s opening includes informing staff that day care, food distribution and overnight accommodations are available during emergencies.
To keep people fresh on the procedures, the hospital also holds a monthly “table-top” emergency scenario drill for different contingencies.
Although select doctors and staff members are being trained on the system, the program is designed to be easy to follow.
”In the old days, we were very dependent upon everybody knowing everything. Now, we’re basically saying, ‘We’ll tell you what to do. This is where you report to.’ We have a structure in place. We’re less dependent on individualized plans. This is a generic way to do everything.”
Such improvements are especially important after what happened during Hurricane Katrina, he said.
”Katrina showed how unprepared hospitals were,” he said.
Before, the room at the medical center that would have been used for an emergency command center didn’t even have backup power, he said.
But now, there’s even a backup location where an alternate command center can be set up.
”Hospitals have reorganized their thinking,” he said. “This is the future. And it will become more an absolute part of what every hospital will be required to have. There will be a time when every hospital will be required to have a dedicated incident command location. It will be an official room. It will be like a bathroom. You have to have one.”
As someone in charge of emergency preparedness, Mr. Wismer said the new center is reassuring.
But he said he thinks about it “in terms of lives.”
He added, “We would definitely be saving more lives under the current circumstances that we would have in the past. It’s a more organized and efficient method of using our resources than we have ever had before. Because these types of emergencies that we’re dealing with require this. Most people don’t realize that emergency rooms start to get flooded after about 15 to 30 people.”
During such crises situations, the hospital becomes a “lighthouse,” Mr. Wismer said.
”The most important thing, really, is our ability — in a structured, identical way — to communicate with everybody,” he said. “For the community, it should be an assurance that there are some basic preparations in place to deal with these types of events.”

