Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Mission Statement

The John Dempsey Hospital/UConn Medical Group Safety Management Program is managed by the John Dempsey Hospital/UConn Medical Group Safety Officer and includes coordination with the governing body, quality assurance, safety committee, education, hazardous materials and waste management, public safety and emergency preparedness.

The Safety Officer is appointed by the Clinic Operations Administrator and is responsible for development, implementation and monitoring of the safety management program. The Safety Officer serves as the chairperson of the Safety and Emergency Preparedness Planning Committee. In this capacity, the Safety Officer has the authority to effect immediate corrective action on all matters involving patient, visitor or staff safety.

Additionally, the John Dempsey Hospital/UConn Medical Group Safety Officer will oversee the Department of Public Health and Bioterrorism Management Programs for John Dempsey Hospital/UConn Medical Group. This includes the development of a bioterrorism preparedness workgroup; collaboration with the Center of Excellence to develop protocols to manage bioterrorism-specific scenarios, participation in an assessment of the hospital's current state of preparedness, collaboration with the Center of Excellence in development of a regional protocol for responding to a bioterrorism event, participation in development of a plan to hold emergency preventive medical clinics to vaccinate or distribute antibiotics to all persons in the hospital's catchment area, participation in the state and local health alert network, training of hospital staff who respond to bioterrorism specific scenarios, (in a manner consistent with state and regional plans), participation in exercises to test local response protocols, submission of the names of Bioterrorism Emergency Preparedness Committee representative to the Center of Excellence for transmission to the Department of Public Health, and the submission of scenario-specific response protocols to the Center of Excellence.

At the John Dempsey Hospital/UConn Medical Group the Safety Officer is the Associate Vice President of Facilities Management and will also be consulted in matters of general plant operations such as general utilities involving medical gases, electrical (power) and mechanical failures (heating and cooling), plumbing (water loss) or other main plant life support system incidents with might adversely impact patient care services.

Every hospital department has a department-specific safety manual, which must be approved by the Safety Officer. This manual contains department-specific information for respective staff on codes and evacuation procedures. These manuals, are available at each unit, are orange, in color for quick unit reference.

University of Connecticut Health System Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee

The University of Connecticut Health System Safety Committee is established to coordinate the implementation of the safety management program and is assigned the principal responsibility for overseeing effectiveness of the monitoring, evaluating and problem solving activities. Members are appointed annually by the University of Connecticut Health System Hospital Director or his/her designee. Membership includes, but is not to be limited to, the representation from various University of Connecticut Health System departments.

Emergency Planning and Information Team (EPIT)

The Emergency Planning and Information Team is a consolidation of the UConn Health Center Readiness Information Team (RIT) and the Clinical Operations Bio-terrorism Team. Immediately after 9-11, the Readiness Information Team was organized to inform staff about developments and improve UConn Health Center readiness. The Bio-terrorism Team addressed the clinical issues around terrorist attacks. As you may recall, broadcast messages and information sessions were held to keep staff cognizant of developments as well as answer staff questions. This consolidation will improve communications and avoid duplication of efforts.