A Tented Affair

Where will we put the victims of a disaster? As on the battlefield, here, at the front steps of a towering, 1,000-bed hospital, we will put them in tents.

On a sunny, crisp morning in late February, several vendors deployed a series of tents on the tennis courts on the East Baltimore campus. There were large, multipurpose military tents and smaller yellow and blue tents, each equipped with air filtration systems that would isolate and encase airborne biological and chemical contaminants.
Hopkins Hospital will purchase two tents like the yellow one pictured, but larger. The tents could supplement the hospital’s isolation bed capacity and provide additional patient care space until permanent space became available. To buy the tents, the hospital will use a $100,000 HRSA grant designated for the purchase of disaster or critical event equipment.

The unexpected star of the morning turned out to be the tennis courts. “It’s a flat, open surface surrounded by buildings to offer protection, but easily accessible and close to the hospital,” says Gai Dimant of Operations Integration. “It would actually be a great plan to set up on the tennis courts.”

Home Health Scores

Last year, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) began publishing online comparison data for home health agencies. In February, Johns Hopkins Home Health Services (JHHS), a part of the JH Home Care Group, ranked above Maryland and national home health averages on most measures and realized a 2 percent improvement, on average, over the previous reporting period. For details, click on Home Health Compare at www.medicare.gov.

More Space for Peds

Already slated for “south of Orleans” as part of JHM’s redevelopment plan is a mammoth parking garage plus space for utilities and loading docks. Next up for this parcel of land? A pediatric medical office building. The proposed 95,000-square-foot, four-story building would be located across Orleans Street from the new Children’s and Maternal Hospital with an entrance on Wolfe Street. In addition to 80 to 100 faculty offices, it would house pediatric clinics, including the Harriet Lane Clinic, now in the Jefferson Building.

New Faculty Center

Ron Peterson with Dick and Robert Johns