Readers Write: Making a Case for Digitizing HICS Protocols and Emergency Notification Processes

Making a Case for Digitizing  HICS Protocols and Emergency Notification Processes
By Dave Sinkinson

Dave Sinkinson, MBA is VP of mobile at Rave Mobile Safety of Framingham, MA.

Patient safety is and always will be at the forefront for healthcare systems. While planned events such as a move or community open house warrant and receive pre-planning by hospital officials, emergency situations can and do arise in the healthcare setting at a moment’s notice. Whether it is a global pandemic, natural disaster, system malfunction, or a violent incident, hospitals must plan for and respond quickly to adverse events, not only for the sake of their patients, but also because they have a duty of care to safeguard employees and visitors to their facilities.

That’s where the Hospital Incident Command system (HICS) comes in. HICS offers hospitals and other healthcare organizations a standardized framework for managing complex emergencies and helps health systems prioritize safety. But meeting the various HICS requirements in the midst of an already busy role can be arduous for health system emergency managers and those they rely on during crisis events. Healthcare safety practitioners are ditching outdated tools and technologies — such as printed manuals, paper phone tree lists, or legacy communication systems — in favor of digital solutions that streamline work, automate compliance, meet quorum requirements, and improve notification capabilities.

Digital transformation is certainly not new in the healthcare sector. Healthcare safety leaders have been using technology to improve patient care processes and outcomes for years, and to help with emergency notification. However, healthcare safety practitioners are realizing the benefits of using these same tools to digitize incident command protocols and to enhance operational efficiencies.

The Mayo Clinic is using technology to tackle the manual, time-consuming tasks on their HICS to-do list. Their automated approach to industry compliance is not only ensuring that all HICS team members are on the same page, in real time, it is ticking the box on staff accountability, notification, and reporting. Emergency management professionals at the world’s top hospital recognized how unrealistic it was for key personnel to access hard copies of crisis plans with detailed responsibilities or to search for materials in times when seconds matter. They digitized safety protocols, resources, and benchmarks in a handy, one-stop app that not only helps them to accomplish necessary HICS steps, but allows them to do even more, for example, further leveraging the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) for a more integrated approach to safety.

By automating HICS activations, healthcare safety professionals can lay out emergency response plans in the order they need to be carried out, manage permissions, reassign responsibilities if they are not undertaken swiftly, and notify certain audiences about an event unfolding and steps that need to be taken. Technology also captures important data including when an emergency alert was sent, who received important messages, and which HICS team members performed emergency response actions.

Health systems are also tapping into these tools for non-emergencies. They are being used to communicate about staffing shortages and to share severe weather updates that may impact employees coming to work or leaving their shift. They are also being used more often as digital resource centers. In the past, it may have been sensible to house emergency preparedness and response materials on a hospital website or intranet portal, but when you consider how many of us are tethered to our phones these days, it just makes sense to prioritize safety apps.

As with anything worthwhile, it is not simply a matter of building it and they will come. Hospitals must consistently communicate about safety tech solutions via signage, during meetings, and as part of staff onboarding to raise awareness and encourage usage during crisis situations and as part of the health system’s engagement culture. They must commit to training staff at different intervals throughout the year so that personnel can take an active role in their own personal safety by using anonymous tip-to-text technology and two-way communication components, or simply just so they know where to go for important hospital updates. Reviewing page visits and other digital data can also help hospitals to better understand what is resonating with employees and what may need tweaking or highlighting.

Communication and collaboration are the foundation for any HICS plan. With the push of a button, safety apps can effectively connect hospital leaders with people in the trenches while simultaneously informing first responders of an emergency situation.