[Ares-races] Looking for tips on how to best approach those buiilding a new hospital

[N4AOF]

My first thought would be to ensure that you are talking with your local
(county?) EMA director and that amateur radio is included in your
community disaster plan.  This will go a long way towards establishing
the validity of a requirement to have ham radio as the backup
communications system for the hospital.

Aside from convincing them that they need you, you need to work on your
end to ensure that amateur radio really is capable of providing backup
communications for the hospital in the event of an emergency -- think in
terms of providing at least a radio operator and an assistant/runner for
both the hospital and whatever your community will use as its EOC, plus
a radio operator for each ambulance -- for at least 72 hours of
continuous operation.  After all, if they call on you, it is critical
that you be able to deliver.  The hospital will almost certainly have an
accreditation requirement for at least one mass casualty drill
annually - you will need to be able to support that drill -- sometimes a
planned 3 or 4 hour drill is tougher to support than a two or three day
real emergency.

Try to find out who is actually writing the requirements for the
hospital (they probably copied them from somewhere else, but someone is
still responsible for signing off on those requirements as being what
THIS hospital needs).  Your local Emergency Management director should
already be talking with the hospital planners about emergency
requirements.  If the EM director is friendly towards amateur radio as
an emergency communications tool, you should have your foot in the door.

When you start thinking in terms of specific requirements, keep in mind
that your cable runs will have to meet the applicable building and
safety codes -- which means things like plenum fire rated cable instead
of ordinary coax.  The hospital is going to need to have SOME emergency
communications backup system.  They can have a complete second set of
radios, cables, and antennas (really big bucks) or they can have a cable
run that could be used for amateur radio or any other backup radio
system and let the ham radio group commit to providing the radios,
antennas, and operators (which is a lot cheaper for the hospital -- if
you can make good on your commitment).

73 de N4AOF



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Younker" <dougy@ruraltel.net>