When a community-based hospital adds a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) so its
most fragile patients can be cared for in-house rather than at a regional center 50 miles away, a family places enormous trust in the hospital’s ability to meet its baby’s healthcare needs.
Likewise, facility leaders must be confident they can operate their advanced technology and medical equipment at all times, no matter the weather or utility grid’s load.
“We’ve made a promise to our community to be here 24/7 to provide the highest quality of care, and in order to do that we need reliable power,” says Lori Knitt, chief support services officer at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center in Sheboygan, Wis.
Knitt reports that the hospital probably sees power surges three to four times a year. Just a few years ago a squirrel blew a nearby transformer. While utility outages are usually brief—most less than a minute, just enough to make an alarm clock blink—they shut everything down in the hospital.
