BY WALTER ELLIOTT
EAST ORANGE / NEWARK – State regulators have been spending this month looking over the shoulders of administrators and engineering staff in two hospitals to make sure that their patients and staff can keep their cool.
The New Jersey State Department of Health is permitting CareWell Health and St. Michael’s Medical Center to continue admitting walk-in patients since either late last month or early this month.
DOH officials, however, had ambulance services go to hospitals other than St. Michael’s since Aug. 10 while and until that Newark hospital sufficiently repairs or replaces its failed High Volume Air Conditioning chiller unit.
CareWell Health officials, formerly East Orange General Hospital, have meanwhile had to file temperature and humidity readings of its patient rooms, operating theaters and storage areas to the state every Friday by noon since July 29.
DOH Compliance Officer Jean Markey, in respective July 27 and Aug. 10 notices, had ordered Directed Plans of Correction for both hospitals. Markey had issued the plans after deeming the medical centers’ own correction plans as “inadequate.”
The state department said that the hospitals had failed to keep temperature and humidity levels in particular rooms under maximum levels for an over four-hour period. Those federally issued guidelines are:
- 70-75 degrees F and 60 percent maximum humidity in patient rooms.
- 70-75 deg. F and 60-to-65-percent humidity in the Emergency Department.
- 70-75 deg. F and 30-60 percent humidity in Intensive/Critical Care Unit rooms.
- 68-75 deg. F, 20-to-60-percent humidity in Operating Rooms.
Exceeding the said guidelines subject the hospitals to violating their state-issued operating licenses.
It should be noted that CareWell and St. Michael’s HVAC problems have cropped up during a couple of heatwaves. The National Weather Service has recorded at least three straight days of 90 degree-plus temperature, qualifying as a heat wave, five times in Newark since Summer had started on June 21.
The NWS, which takes its recordings at Newark Liberty International Airport, have also recorded temperatures 10-to-15-degrees higher than normal on 10 days since Aug. 1.
Two more heat waves through Sept. 19, when Autumn begins, would tie Newark’s “hottest summer” record. Please note that EWR is known for its paved and unshaded ground.
St. Michael’s Aug. 4-5 chiller failure, which included transferring 12 of its ICU patients to the sister St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic, was the first to make the local news media.
A chiller unit is an air conditioner component that exchanges heated air for cooler air, the latter of which is then vented into rooms.
St. Michael’s spokesman Bruno Tedeschi, on Aug. 5, said that some of the hospital’s less seriously ill patients were moved to a floor that still had A/C. Tedeschi, on Aug. 10, added that a temporary chiller went online until a permanent unit could be installed.
State DOH inspectors visited St. Michael’s on Aug. 7. They recorded 98.7 to 99.5 deg. F readings among the Emergency Department’s waiting, exam and triage rooms. Their Monday readings had dropped to at least 80 degrees-but still exceeding the 70-75 deg. limit.
An eight-day heatwave meanwhile broke on Aug. 10.
The DOH inspectors’ thoroughness bears out Markey’s six-page July 27 letter to CareWell President and CEO Paige Dworak.
The letter outlined temperature and humidity exceedances found among 33 readings made over eight days from July 1 to 27. Those readings were made among 16 patient rooms, six Emergency Department spaces, Operating Rooms and in a utility closet and a supply room.
An ED supply room, for example, was measured by a DOH inspector at 79 deg. F and 65 percent 10:10 a.m. July 26. The fifth floor utility room registered 88 deg. F and 37.7 percent humidity 12:02 p.m. that day.
One operating room – measured July 1, 18-20 and 24-26 – ranged from 64 deg. to 78.4 for a “Local Talk” averaged 71.8 deg.
Six second floor patient rooms ranged from 78 to 81 deg. for a 79.1 deg. LT average. Fifteen rooms on the fifth floor’s “step down 5 West” ranged from 78.1 to 83.7 for a78.7 LT average. Three fifth floor ICU rooms went from 76 to 77.9 for a 77.1 average.
Markey’s letter to Dworak noted CareWell’s “proffered steps” to close window blinds, increase round making frequency, offer portable fans and room transfers to patients. Those steps were deemed “inadequate” before delivering the correction plan.
While there were no responses to messages left for St. Michael’s as of 12:35 p.m. Aug. 24, Dworak did respond to a query.
“Yes, we report every week Friday. Repairs were made an all inpatient rooms have been within the appropriate range for a few weeks now. The DOH has been on site and validated temperatures are back to normal.”
