TMC: The Big Move

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TMC staff members are experts at taking care of patients in our hospital, but we are not in the business of transporting them across town, so when it came time to pick up stakes and move from the old TMC to the new TMC just after Christmas, we looked to our community partners for help.

Early in the planning phase, the “expert” patient movers were brought in, including Denison and Sherman Fire Departments, Lone Star Ambulance Service, Preston EMS, Vital Care Ambulance Services and Star Plus Ambulance Service.

The logistics of moving patients from one hospital to another called for many considerations. We need primary and secondary transportation routes to avoid the traffic in general and the construction along FM 691 and US 75 interchange. We had to determine how may ambulances would be needed, and the how to coordinate departures and arrivals. Communications among both facilities and the transportation units was of prime importance, and we had to allow for weather difficulties. On moving day, there was snow on the ground and a forecast of more.

Moving patients inside the hospital meant we had to provide staff for patient care at both facilities. We had to decide which patients to move first and coordinate that movement on the three elevators. We had to develop a system to track every patient all along the route, to ensure we knew exactly where each patient was at every moment. In addition to moving the patients, we had to move their personal items— no leaving flowers and balloons behind either—and coordinate and reassure all the families and visitors. All of this along with the everyday things that go into taking care of patients.

The hospital moves patients from one floor to another every day, and ambulances transport patients regularly, but moving an entire hospital all at once was clearly out of the ordinary. TMC treated the move as if we had been hit with a significant disaster and had to do a full patient evacuation. At the new hospital, we practiced as if we had an emergency mass arrival of patients. Incident command was used just as it would be in a real mass casualty event. Command roles, communications, and processes that took place inside TMC and the activities of ambulances and other support entities were orchestrated and planned and practiced for months right up to days before the first patient was loaded on to the first ambulance.

In addition to the pros from the fire departments and ambulances, we had help from a Grayson County College EMT instructor and his students who helped move the patients. We had local HAM operators on standby at each facility in case phone service was interrupted. We had representatives from local and County Emergency Management monitoring the move in case help was needed. We had network support from Arlington for our internet patient-tracking system. At both facilities, working alongside TMC staff were firefighters and ambulance and EMS personnel. We even had a CareFlight helicopter on standby dedicated to our move.

On the morning of December 29 at 7:25am, with fourteen ambulances, a wheelchair van and one helicopter on standby, we transported the first patient. Five hours later, a total of seventy patients had been moved, including a new baby born during the move. TMC’s move went smoothly because we were prepared and because we had the generous and expert support from our community partners.

by Donna Glenn, RN
Director of Infection Control & Emergency Preparedness
Texoma Medical Center
Denison, Texas