Tracking System Prepares New York to Evacuate Patients in Emergencies

Just more than one year after Hurricane Sandy's waters flooded the northeast, cutting power and forcing more than 7,000 patients and residents at hospitals and nursing homes to evacuate, New York state demonstrated that it can now track those vulnerable citizens during the next big storm. A demo in mid-November 2013 at a Manhattan hospital used the state's Evacuation of Facilities in Disasters System (e-FINDS), which the New York State Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) devised over the summer.

Using pre-printed wristbands with bar codes and identifying numbers, handheld scanners, a mobile app and optional paper tracking, the system tracks patients and residents in real time across facilities. The Web-based tracking system was spurred by a recommendation from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's NYS Ready and Respond Commissions and was a priority of the Department of Health, according to John Norton, Health Cluster CIO for ITS. During an evacuation, health facilities will have enough pre-printed e-FINDS bracelets for all patients and residents. They will be fitted with the smudge-proof bands and scanned into the state's existing Health Commerce System using a computer and USB-connected scanner or mobile app. Users will then enter patients' basic information and where they are headed.