In a hospital, a power outage is a life-and-death situation. That’s why Salem Hospital’s Tom Bickett partnered with Portland General Electric to provide services that will get the hospital’s power back on faster and keep its emergency generators running smoothly.
“When you’re in the middle of a surgery or in the emergency room, the 10 seconds it can take for the generators to kick in can seem like a lifetime,” says Bickett, the hospital’s director of facilities. “But with the services PGE provides, our new patient-care tower will get backup power in a split second.”
In the event of an outage, the hospital automatically switches to a secondary power source, instead of firing up their generators and waiting hours for a manual switchover. About 25 PGE business customers, from hospitals to power-sensitive manufacturers, pay for this fail-safe service.
Dispatchable Standby Generation
Salem Hospital’s new patient tower also subscribes to Dispatchable Standby Generation service. This allows PGE to use the hospital’s backup generators to meet the power grid’s high demand during heat waves and cold spells. In return for this cost-effective power supply, PGE covers the generators’ maintenance, operation and fuel costs.
“Anything we can do to reduce our operating expenses helps lower overall healthcare costs,” Bickett says. “It’s a more stable and economical solution for us, and it helps PGE keep utility costs lower.”
Weekends, he’s a road warrior
When he’s not taking care of hospital facilities, Bickett and Regina, his high-school sweetheart and wife of 32 years, enjoy road-tripping around the Northwest: “We put the top down on our convertible and head north, south, east or west.”
Affording those leisure pursuits and gaining such a responsible position haven’t come without sacrifice and commitment. After working in technical trades, he got his associate’s degree at age 30 and was 44 when he returned for his bachelor’s. “It was what some would call the hard path, but I was driven,” he says.
That hard journey has given Bickett an appreciation for anything that makes life a little less stressful. And for someone whose greatest responsibility is ensuring that the crucial systems of his hospital will function when needed, there’s a lot of relief in knowing doctors, nurses and patients will have power, no matter what.