Hospitals and large physician group practices are equipped to identify and respond to medical emergencies, but what happens when they need to summon emergency services like the police or the fire department? By law, dialing 911 from any phone should instantly reach emergency services and automatically route accurate location information. But, in some cases, healthcare providers with multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) may inadvertently fall short of the requirements put in place by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
David Will, Director, Telecom Expense Management (TEM), and Jennifer Brown, Vice President of Customer Operations for Pixel Health Technology Services, recently discussed their experience with recognizing gaps in 911 compliance—and how they have taken action to help healthcare organizations.
Scenario 1: Lack of awareness
The FCC has two statutes, Kari’s Law & RAY BAUM’s Act, which were implemented to improve access for reaching 911 and identifying a caller’s location. Kari’s Law requires direct dialing of 911 (instead of pressing another button to reach an outbound phone line). The statute also requires that telecom systems installed after February 16, 2020, must send a 911 alert to a central location within the network, such as a front desk or security office, with the caller’s location and callback number. This requirement is coupled with RAY BAUM’S Act, where the “dispatchable location,” such as the address and floor or suite number of the caller, must be relayed to the dispatch center.
“The ability to reach an outside line and relay location information is especially important in a multi-floor hospital or extended campus environment, but some staff may be unaware of these 911-related regulations,” said David. “Often, hospital security staff may be aware, but in-house IT staff doesn’t typically focus on this part of compliance.”
Scenario 2: External vendors not completing the 911 setup
“We’ve encountered situations where telecommunication vendors have installed new systems and testing 911 compliance is presented as a separate or ‘optional’ service. 911 compliance can be a difficult system to manage and sometimes the vendors don’t properly test it,” shared David.
“In other cases, telecommunication vendors want to get the client’s service up, running, and billing. The client forgets about the 911 component and doesn’t follow up with it until there’s a problem.”
Scenario 3: Taking “shortcuts” to 911
“Another non-compliant issue involves hospitals ‘shortcutting’ the 911 system,” said David. “In this scenario, anybody who dials 911 is connected to the hospital’s main security desk. But there are a few major issues with this situation. First, the security desk may not be staffed 24/7 to gather the information, or the security desk could be calling 911 from a different building or a different floor, which could confuse and delay emergency responders. When you involve others in this time-critical process, the system can break down.”
Taking action to achieve 911 compliance
“Our team at Pixel Health is often called when an organization needs an urgent response,” said Jennifer. “They may have received a letter from the state which says that 911 couldn’t identify a caller in their facility and now they need to prove that they’ve corrected the issue.”
In other cases, organizations are proactively looking ahead to prevent potential liabilities.
“We help hospitals and physician practice groups test their telecom systems and eliminate weak points in their process,” added Jennifer. “They want to reduce their risk and exposure to liability. With a streamlined, compliant 911 telecom system, calls to 911 are properly routed so people in the building can get the help they need, at their location, as soon as possible.”
For more information on Pixel Health’s Telecom Expense Management, click here.
