SCHEART History
What is SCHEART?
We know from 9/11, hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita, and other disaster/mass casualty events, that "When all else fails...," ham radio may be the only source of communications still standing. Many state and federal agencies are making redundant communications "priority one," building on lessons learned from past disasters. For South Carolina, the SCHEART Project is designed to provide backup communications for the Palmetto 800 MHz system and other devices (cell phones and satellite radios already in existence) to support all Health and Medical responders (ESF-8). The key strategy of the SCHEART system is to provide robust, linked UHF and VHF analog repeaters located at regional South Carolina Educational Television Network (SCETV) transmitter sites. This system is the backbone linking local resources for communities and regional hospitals, and allowing inter-regional communication or direct access to the South Carolina State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC). The new system overcomes some of the limitations and issues surrounding use of High Frequencies (HF) between coastal communities and the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC). A parallel digital system is planned for the future.
SCHEART History Starts in Charleston
In 2004 a group of concerned amateur (ham) radio operators and engineers saw a need to establish a backup communications system to support hospitals along the South Carolina coast during major disasters. They conceived the Hospital Emergency Amateur Radio Team (HEART) project for emergency responses in the low country. This important system is activated when normal lines of communication are lost or severely crippled. HEART has been a fully developed, viable asset that coastal hospital facilities use to communicate with first responders, coordinate patient transport, check hospital bed capacity, and track patient evacuations.
The original spark for the project ignited when a routine communications assessment revealed there was no interior amateur radio coverage for the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital. After the events of 9/11, emergency communications, especially in hospitals, moved to a more decentralized command and support structure, raising a question as to how best to incorporate amateur radio into disaster plans as they evolved. The traditional practice of putting a ham radio in the ER was not meeting the need to communicate in a wide area inside the hospital: for example, it was not wide enough to assist with patient and staff response or to supply logistics. Not only did the hospitals need interior coverage, they also needed backups to communicate between facilities and with first responders in the field. Especially with the prevailing assumption that our ubiquitous cell phone systems would be overwhelmed in emergencies, amateur radio was viewed as a “safety net” for existing public safety communications. The overall design philosophy was to put small 2M or 440 repeaters at key hospitals and to link them by a frequency-agile remote base through several regional UHF hubs. This allowed a great deal of redundancy in the system to overcome potential losses due to storms, earthquakes, or other disasters.
The HEART network was formed and piloted under the direction of Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) registered nurses with extensive emergency care and ham radio experience. The MUSC nurses were joined by local engineers and funding was provided by MUSC.
The USC Ham Radio Coordinating Committee built the SCHEART organization, and facilitated statewide recognition and acceptance of ham radio as a critical partner in redundant communications. This committee has been superceded by the SCHEART steering committee.
Today, the HEART system provides backup communications support for hospitals in the tri-county area of Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester. HEART is designed to be used daily for amateur radio communications, and when necessary for health and medical support, Red Cross, SKYWARN, and local government emergency communications. The HEART system remains under the control of amateur radio operators and is regulated by FCC rules. The success of the HEART system led state preparedness experts to advocate for expansion of the system to provide a means to link the local HEART radio resources statewide, supporting South Carolina’s health and medical communities.
