Unsecured rooftop doors are a never
If there’s one thing I know for certain—you can’t allow unfettered access to roof areas and other dangerous spots (e.g., utility spaces, janitor closets, electrical rooms, IT spaces, etc.)
This past January, a patient at an Illinois hospital died after being stuck on the roof of the hospital for several hours. Preliminary reports say she died of hypothermia. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain how something like this can happen in this day and age (presumably because the incident is still under investigation, the article stops short of indicating how the rooftop door came to be unsecured). To my mind, such a condition has to be considered a “never” event. Of all the conditions and practices I’ve noted over the years, the unsecured rooftop door ranks at the tippy-top of my “to be avoided at all costs” list. Although something like this doesn’t happen very often, Murphy’s Law is always lurking out there somewhere. In some ways, it goes hand-in-hand with one of the things I’ve heard most often in my career as a consultant: “it’s never been a problem before!” To which I generally respond: “it was always a problem, it just wasn’t recognized.”
Clearly, you can’t post an individual at every door to make sure that a hazardous condition doesn’t perpetuate—that would be nigh on impossible. But you can use technology to enhance the security of those barriers, even something as simple as a local alarm on the door can act as a deterrent in some cases. It depends on how remote an area we’re talking about (the proverbial tree in the forest can make a lot of noise), but one could take that into account as a function of a (wait a minute, could it be) risk assessment. Is there any reason why an at-risk door should be unsecured or otherwise unattended? I can’t think of one. I would encourage you to go check your perimeter doors. Even if you’re on top of it, is there something that could be done to better secure them?
It is our responsibility to make sure that the folks under our care are safe from any—and every—thing. I know stuff happens, but maybe we have to look more closely at how narrowly we’re defining preventable. I don’t see anything from the above story that couldn’t have been prevented, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if we ever learn the whole story.
About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Chartis Group. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is the author of HCPro's Hospital Safety Director's Handbook and is an advisory board member for Accreditation and Quality Compliance Center. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.