When the hurricane came, the Gourverneur website posted a notice that all appointments of the week are canceled and employees are not required to come for that week. Directors and some of the staff came to office to call their patients and help handle the patient who walked in.
During the first week after hurricane, our department director made several announcements on staff meeting: reporting to the staff the loss of our department and the temporary closure of Bellevue hospital (with which we have a close relationship); therapists should help patients with disaster processing; setting up a group for patients processing hurricane; taxi fees reimbursable during the hurricane week for employees who came to office; employees who volunteered at Brooklyn shelter were acknowledged and the hours counted for working hours, etc.
Our agency use the computer system regulated by HHC. Since the first week after hurricane, the screen-saver was updated saying "call this number if you need to talk about hurricane", etc. In addition, the information of hurricane processing group was posted on Gouverneur website (but was removed on Dec 6th, so now there is no poster related to the hurricane there).
During the second staff meeting after hurricane, which took place on Dec 3rd, our department director announced the newly established emergency plan: 1) Every employee filling out a chart of basic information of all his/her patients, keeping hard copies in office, in case of power off and co-workers can help contact patients; 2)Every employee filling out a form including their personal contact, address and zone code (zone are divided for car pool); 3) Establishing an emergency leaders' group; 4) Handing out the contact tree that have been established, requiring two-way active communication. 5) Will test the contact tree in the preparing process for the coming Christmas party (Everyone communicates through the contact tree about who brings what to the party).
Some comments about the using of social media: 1) During and after Hurricane, we posted relevant information like when our clinic is closed or open. I found it is important but it may not really relieve patient's anxiety, especially those who ran out of medicines and those who are severelly affected by the hurricane. So it will be more humane if we could put some brief information like "If you ran out of medication, you can..", "If your home is affected by the hurricane, you can...", etc. 2) In addition, I found the information was only posted on the homepage of Gourverneur, not on the sub-pages like mental health department. I think it is better that the sub-pages has some announcement from the department director, which can help relieve patients' anxiety. 3) Furthermore, as we work close with Bellevue hospital, we could provide some information about Bellevue and a link to the Bellevue website as it is severely affected by the hurricane.
Some limitations of using social media for our agency: 1) Most patients don't use the website as a main resource for information; 2) All the agencies under NYCHHC share the same format of Website, so I think there maybe some technical difficulty if we want to put some instant information. 3) The staff may overlook the use of website as they prefer to contact patients personally and consider it as a more reliable way of communication.
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