Advancing Preparedness for Life Support Users During Power Outages

Details

• Personal Author:
  Cote, Eric ; Peterson, Lisa ; Evans, Adrianna ; Nilz, Maggie
• Corporate Authors:
  Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
• Description:
  For the average person, power outages are inconvenient. For the growing number of people who depend on life support devices and other electric-powered medical equipment in their homes, even short-term outages can become a matter of life and death, especially when outages occur with little warning.
  
  The increased frequency and duration of power outages caused by natural disasters, documented in a Climate Central report, compounds the challenges faced by medical device users. In California, utilities implement intentional public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) to minimize the risk of wildfires sparked by utility lines. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, 78 PSPS events occurred between 2019 and 2022 in California.
  
  Absent a reliable source of backup power, many people who depend on life support and other types of durable medical equipment (DME) rely on hospital emergency departments or emergency shelters during an outage, simply seeking a place to plug in their device. Power outages triggered by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 sent hundreds of DME users to hospital emergency departments to plug in their devices. The 2021 Texas power grid failure triggered more than 50 calls over a two-day period to an ambulance provider from patients with lifesustaining medical devices and no power.
  
  The increased number of power outages requires new solutions to minimize risk to medical device users and reduce drain on hospitals, ambulance providers, and shelters during emergencies.
  
  This report was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under grant number NU38OT000290. The findings and conclusions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services, or the other organizations involved, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
  
  advancing-preparedness-for-life-support.pdf
  
  
• Subjects:
  Electric Power Supplies Emergencies Equipment Failure Intensive Care Units Life Support Systems
• Series:
  ASTHO Report
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  grant number NU38OT000290
• Genre:
  Report
• Pages in Document:
  23 numbered pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7176b3e9e1f278930ed068f7818d73f580e5864be26961632349b354f0d99777a703a06bc980cb32c1f31da46af840353aa1e0605d813c06486c43de7f3c92e5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/149778/cdc_149778_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 994.77 KB ]