E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiThe falls and heart attacks doctors had expected didn't materialize. But paramedics and the ER had a surge in patients with at-home oxygen, ventilators and other respiratory equipment who needed help or feared they soon would. Moreover, frail patients often were admitted to the hospital because doctors couldn't be sure a power failure was the only problem, a huge expense fraught with the risk of medical errors, said Prezant, a lung specialist.
When it comes to oxygen, many home health care companies "bend over backward" to race tanks to customers during power outages, noted Washington's Rubinson. In fact, after Hurricane Katrina, the American Association for Home Care asked the government to designate oxygen providers as "first responders" for easier movement in disaster zones.
Medicare requires home oxygen suppliers to have customized emergency backup plans for customers.
But if roads are impassable or the disaster's too big, home oxygen may not be delivered.
Yet there are no overarching recommendations on how many backup tanks patients should keep on hand. Nor is there agreement about home generators, which have their own risk - deadly carbon monoxide poisoning if operated wrong - and can't always adequately power energy-hogging medical equipment. The FDA isn't advising generators in its patient checklist due out this spring, and the disabled often can't afford one.
But the AP survey found utilities frequently advise generators, such as Wisconsin utility We Energies, which also doesn't keep a list of power-dependent customers.
"There's a danger to keep the list and give a false hope you might be able to turn that power on sooner," said company spokesman Brian Manthey. "We feel more comfortable telling people you need to have a backup plan," including generators or batteries.
Whatever a family's backup plan, Rubinson and Prezant stress that local emergency officials must know how many power-dependent patients they might have to rescue, and getting utilities and home care companies to share customer lists is a good start.
That's happening in northern Arizona. In Coconino County, home of Flagstaff, the emergency office gets a regularly updated medical-priority list from the state's largest utility, and records GPS coordinates for those homes so they can be found fast.
"We probably don't have 100 percent of everyone. There are people who slip through those cracks," said emergency planner Sherrie Collins.
Federal patient-privacy rules limit sharing, cautioned Bill Desmarais, a co-owner of Home Care Specialists Inc. in Haverhill, Mass., which had about 800 oxygen-dependent customers using backup tanks when last month's Northeast ice storm cut power.
He does a home safety assessment for new customers and offers a tank in advance, to keep for emergencies. Such tanks can be over 4 feet tall and weigh 80 pounds. "They're green and they're ugly," Desmarais said. "A lot of people don't like it as ornaments in their living room. ... You can't force them."
Even the federal government was surprised by the demand during Hurricane Gustav, when nearly 1,400 people were housed in special medical shelters in Louisiana and Texas, 20 percent to 40 percent of whom required powered medical equipment. When generators failed in Baton Rouge shelters, an oxygen supplier hired to refill patients' oxygen tanks couldn't keep up with the unanticipated need.
"We had some nervous wringing of hands as some of the oxygen tanks started going down to low levels," said Dr. Allen Dobbs, chief medical officer of the National Disaster Medical System - although enough were eventually found. "We have to have reliable contingency backup plans for these folks."
