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Bellevue Hospital Conducts Emergency Evacuation Drill

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - One of the New York City hospitals that lost power during superstorm Sandy has tested out a new statewide system of tracking patients in an emergency.

As WCBS 880's Marla Diamond, Bellevue Hospital Center conducted an emergency evacuation drill on Friday. The hospital had to carry out the real thing on Oct. 29, 2012 after the storm surge knocked out generator power to the public hospital.

Bellevue was one of many hospitals forced to evacuate all of its patients during Sandy.

Bellevue Hospital Conducts Emergency Evacuation Drill

It now uses the state health department's Evacuation of Facilities in Disasters System.

The state launched the e-FINDS wrist band system over the summer, in time for the 2013 hurricane season.

"You're seeing it conducted right now with the bar code scanner. It can also be done manually. Each wrist band has the facility name on it," a doctor participating in the drill said.

The new system gives doctors more information on evacuated patients, Diamond reported.

"More accurate information, more timely information about where the patients ultimately landed," Bellevue director Marcy Pressman told Diamond. "We didn't lose a single patient [during Sandy]. What I will say is that the process of tracking the patient was manual and we did have to call every receiving hospital to make sure the patient landed where we thought they were going to land."

The e-FINDS system is in use in every hospital and adult care facility in New York State.

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