Hospital Disaster Preparedness

What is the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS), Wireless Priority Service (WPS) and Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) and why should hospitals be enrolled?

Hospitals may benefit substantially in achieving landline and cell communications and restoring communications after a disruption in service with and without a declared disaster.

GETS provides emergency access and priority processing in the local and long distance segments of the Public Switched Network (PSN). Federal, state, and local government, industry, and non-profit organization personnel performing their national security and emergency preparedness missions can apply for and receive the GETS card and access code.

WPS is a method of improving connection capabilities for a limited number of authorized national security and emergency preparedness cell phone users. In the event of congestion in the wireless network, an emergency call using WPS will wait in queue for the next available channel.

TSP does two things: It gives a higher priority to restoration of lost service by the hospital’s telecommunications provider, and in the event that new services are needed at the current/new hospital location, the new lines will be expedited in the installation process.