Hospitals Test Y2K Readiness

The year 2000 dawned at hospitals across the state Thursday, bringing power and phone failures, compromised water supplies, a rash of bullet wounds and women in labor.

It was just a drill, of course, an exercise designed to assess how hospitals would handle the flood of problems and assist one another in bleak circumstances. For the most part, the facilities passed the test, discovering valuable information about where they are vulnerable to possible Y2K glitches in computers and other technology.

The emergency drill was challenging, “a pretty good test for us,” said Walt Mickens, a vice president at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

Others across the state agreed.

“It’s going smoothly, but not perfectly,” said Kirsten Schneider, a spokeswoman for Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento. “We expected that. You have to work through the processes and get the questions answered.”

The biggest problem to crop up during the exercise: A new statewide computer system was unable to display the number of hospital beds available for incoming patients in the five-county area from San Luis Obispo County to Orange County.

Officials at the state Emergency Medical Services Authority, though, had the information on paper, as did county and regional emergency officials.

A detailed hospital-by-hospital count of patients and beds throughout the region should have shown thousands of beds available, but the state authority’s computer system was showing line after line of zeros, with fewer than 30 available beds in the region.

“Oh, my God! It is a pile of zeros,” exclaimed state Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) as she looked at the information on the emergency agency’s Web site. “It’s a darn good thing they are doing an exercise.”

The drill was particularly timely in light of a federal report that shows the health-care industry is among those rated the least prepared for any year 2000 computer problems, she said.

Emergency management officials said they worked through the morning to correct the software problem. By midafternoon the information was available on the state’s internal emergency system, though not yet on the authority’s public Web site.

“[Fixing problems] is what the test is for,” said Shirley Tsagris, spokeswoman for the state authority. “It was a pretty minor thing and was discovered before the exercise, but not in enough time to fix” before it got underway.

About 425 of 500 hospitals statewide participated in the test. The drill is designed primarily to assay the emergency medical communications network and its backup systems and gather data on emergency resources.

Around the state, many hospitals used the drill to simulate conditions on New Year’s Eve, with patient emergencies, power problems, extreme rain or snow conditions and hazardous-waste spills caused by computer shutdowns.

In Orange County, just after the pretend midnight, power failed and telephones went out at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center. Across the street, shots were heard from revelers at the Shops at Mission Viejo. Emergency room staff coped with a 30% jump in patient load as women in labor, flu-ravaged seniors and trauma victims jammed the unit.

In the labor and delivery unit, fetal monitors failed and nurses turned to stethoscopes and other basic techniques to keep tabs on newborns. Emergency generators were switched on in the neonatal intensive care unit to keep incubators running.

“We do disaster drills about twice a year, and this is the most complex drill done here” in years, Mickens said.

At Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point, revelers rioted. Five hospitals, the American Red Cross and the Orange County Fire Authority dealt with the injured and practiced triage on actors, who included several with mock blunt-force injuries.

At UCI Medical Center, the hospital staff did its drill on paper, running the scenarios only at the administrative level.

In Orange, a real emergency--a break in a major gas line--disrupted plans by Children’s Hospital of Orange County and St. Joseph Hospital to take an active part in the drill.

Back to fiction: At Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, the power failed and water supplies became contaminated. Emergency room workers had to cope with a rash of bullet wounds from celebrations in Pasadena and Hollywood, and an unusual number of women had gone into labor. Nurses did the work of machines by hand.

At Simi Valley Hospital in Ventura County, nurses performed triage on “victims” while volunteers played hysterical parents. Patients, sporting gauze and fake blood, were sent to the operating room.

“We need more wheelchairs! We need a couple gurneys too!” shouted Cathy Dye, a registered nurse.

Bowen, who heads a joint legislative committee looking into Y2K preparedness, said a committee hearing Thursday highlighted a number of concerns about health-care readiness.

“Some of this is billing and record keeping, which are not of concern on Jan. 1 at 2 a.m.,” she said. “The bigger concern is, will hospitals, and particularly emergency providers, be able to provide care that is needed? We need to know where people can go for medical help.”

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Times staff writers Eric Bailey in Sacramento, Maria La Ganga in San Francisco, Roberto J. Manzano in the San Fernando Valley and Hudson Sangree in Los Angeles and correspondents Susan McCormack and Jennifer Hamm, contributed to this report.