Emergency Water Supply Planning For Hospitals and Health Care Facilities

Water supply is essential for operating hospitals or health care facilities, yet this core infrastructure is not always adequately addressed in preparedness planning. Water supply interruptions occur for a variety of reasons, from main breaks to power outages to natural disasters. Facilities need to be prepared to provide water for drinking, sanitation, fire protection, heating and cooling to continue to serve communities during any interruption. This presentation will focus on the Emergency Water Supply Planning Guide for Hospitals and Health Care Facilities, developed by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This guide provides a road map for developing an Emergency Water Supply Plan (EWSP) so that the facilities can maintain operations during a water supply interruption.

The presentation will outline and discuss the process for developing an Emergency Water Supply Plan (EWSP). The process is initiated by assembling a multi-disciplinary team of public health, health care and water professionals. The team collects the appropriate background documentation and data then conducts a water audit. The water audits provide the data so a facility can understand their current water-use and how water-use can be reduced in an emergency by curtailing or eliminating non-essential functions. The Guide uses decisions trees to analyze the various alternatives for emergency water supply. The team constructs an ESWP for the individual facilities based on site-specific conditions. Finally, the facility's EWSP needs to be tested evaluated tabletop exercises or drills, and revised as needed.