The physicians, staff and friends of Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi, have raised $13,500 for the Sumter Regional Hospital.  (Gulfport was one of the towns hit hard by Hurricane Katrina.)  “So many people assisted us in our time of need, and we felt that now it was our turn to show support to someone else in need,” said David Estorge, Memorial Foundation president.  Click here to read the complete article from SunHerald.com.

Check out the March 15, 2007 issue of Library Journal for the article, “Serving Through Disaster.“  It makes an excellent case for the importance of service continuity planning as a key part of any disaster plan.  For many Health Sciences libraries, it might be the most important part, as we rely more on timely access to electronic resources than we do on saving books and print journals in an emergency.   My favorite quote is by Anne Candreva, CIO of the Brooklyn Public Library, “The question of how quickly we can get back on our feet has turned into how can we make sure to stay there in the first place.”

Check out the March 15, 2007 issue of Library Journal for the article, “Serving Through Disaster.“  It makes an excellent case for the importance of service continuity planning as a key part of any disaster plan.  For many Health Sciences libraries, it might be the most important part, as we rely more on timely access to electronic resources than we do on saving books and print journals in an emergency.   My favorite quote is by Anne Candreva, CIO of the Brooklyn Public Library, “The question of how quickly we can get back on our feet has turned into how can we make sure to stay there in the first place.”

Here’s an update on the library at Sumter Regional Hospital:

• The print collection has been saved and packed away.
• The hospital budget will likely be tight, so updates of some of the textbooks over the next few years are unlikely.
• The librarian has moved into a modular building behind the hospital, with some shelving, filing cabinets, and a small desk.  She’s trying to figure out where all the print journals are going to accumulate.
• The librarian is going to attempt to get a computer set up in the temporary hospital for the doctors and staff to us.

Click here for additional information about Sumter Regional Hospital.

“The greatest stress on hospitals … is after the event rather than during or before. Yet in disaster planning, we spend time planning for the 30 minutes before the disaster hits but rarely get to the recovery phase in our planning exercises.” - Admiral John O. Agwunobi, MD, MBA, MPH, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, speaking at a VHA Health Foundation forum

Admiral Agwunobi argues that disaster planning should begin 30 days after a catastrophic event occurs, not at the actual event. This is an interesting perspective, and one that is currently playing out at the Sumter Regional Hospital. When you get a chance, take a look at Sumter’s current web page (in particular, click on the SRH Employee Updates) and see how the issues are changing as the days go by.

Here’s an article about the recovery efforts of Sumter Regional Hospital that appeared recently in the Washington Post. It presents a look into the enormity of the recovery efforts as well as the area’s desire to keep physicians from being displaced.

From the article …

“We’re trying to be good neighbors,” said Doug Patten, director of medical affairs at Phoebe Putney Memorial Center in Albany, 40 miles away. “We feel the connection between the physicians and the patients is critical and when we can preserve that, we ought to.”

Patten said his hospital wants to ensure that Americus suffers no “Katrina effect” in which health care providers have nowhere to practice.

Hurricane Katrina disrupted the health-delivery system along the Gulf Coast, causing an acute shortage of doctors, nurses and other medical workers. Nearly 6,000 doctors were uprooted. Researchers called it the largest displacement of physicians in U.S. history.

The University of Illinois Extension has put together a nice disaster-related website.  Click here for a page that lists several recovery-related resources.