Imagine you're in an exam room with a patient. You start typing into your electronic health record (EHR), and everything goes pitch black. The computer, room, and hall lights, everything, suddenly have no power.
Such a blackout occurred recently in New York City, when large swaths of the city were plunged into darkness for as long as 5 hours in some areas.
Blackouts often occur for a short time span in towns across the country for mundane reasons. For example, in 2017 alone, 3500 blackouts were reported across the United States—earning the USA the status as the least reliable electrical grid among developed nations.[1]
Over the past 14 years, my practice in Kentucky has suffered two small power outages from lightning storms, called electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy, potentially one of enormous potency.
An EMP's electrical discharge can cause substantial damage to the power grid as well as sensitive electronics, whether they are plugged into the grid at that moment of the discharge or not. EMPs are also generated by a very close lightning strike conducted through wiring, or a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field, such as from solar storms, among other causes, including the remote change of a nuclear discharge.
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COMMENTARY
Zap! Protecting Your Practice Against an Electrical Blackout
Gregory A. Hood, MD
DisclosuresAugust 05, 2019
Imagine you're in an exam room with a patient. You start typing into your electronic health record (EHR), and everything goes pitch black. The computer, room, and hall lights, everything, suddenly have no power.
Such a blackout occurred recently in New York City, when large swaths of the city were plunged into darkness for as long as 5 hours in some areas.
Blackouts often occur for a short time span in towns across the country for mundane reasons. For example, in 2017 alone, 3500 blackouts were reported across the United States—earning the USA the status as the least reliable electrical grid among developed nations.[1]
Over the past 14 years, my practice in Kentucky has suffered two small power outages from lightning storms, called electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy, potentially one of enormous potency.
An EMP's electrical discharge can cause substantial damage to the power grid as well as sensitive electronics, whether they are plugged into the grid at that moment of the discharge or not. EMPs are also generated by a very close lightning strike conducted through wiring, or a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field, such as from solar storms, among other causes, including the remote change of a nuclear discharge.
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Cite this: Gregory A. Hood. Zap! Protecting Your Practice Against an Electrical Blackout - Medscape - Aug 05, 2019.
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Authors and Disclosures
Authors and Disclosures
Author(s)
Gregory A. Hood, MD
Internist, Lexington, Kentucky
Disclosure: Gregory A. Hood, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.