Disastrous events can occur in any moment throughout our lives whether involved as a victim or a provider of care for such event. The role of healthcare professionals, nurses and personnel alike is important to ensure proper patient care, especially for events that are quick and sudden. These events are categorized as Mass Casualty Events (MCE), and they are known to overwhelm local resources of surrounding facilities, consisting of injured or ill patients in need of immediate care (Smith, 2010). Recent incidents such as the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the Chatsworth Metrolink Collision (2008) are examples of such events.
Preparing as a clinician for disaster begins with knowing one’s personal and family preparedness plan. The American Nursing Association (ANA) provides Disaster Competency guidelines for nurses, insuring nurses can make quick and effective decisions during such moments (Smith, 2010). These competency guidelines are found under the ANA Policy White Paper known as “Adapting Standards of Care Under Extreme Conditions: Guidance for Professionals During Disasters, Pandemics, and Other Extreme Emergencies.” The literature has six key recommendations as listed, “(1) Registered Nurses and other health professionals must prepare themselves and their families for potential emergencies, including the potential fort he health professional to be away for extended periods during an emergency. (2) Registered Nurses and other health professionals must use their professional competence to provide the best possible care given the resources and physical conditions under which they are working. (3) Health facilities and other practice sites must provide opportunities for professional decision-makin...
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...nt an organizational chart. This allows all personnel to understand what their roles are at time of incident, and whom you communicate sensitive information too. If no direction or communication is given, providing facilities run the risk of victims trying to enter their doors seeking care, which can over exhaust resources and oversaturate hospitals. Therefore, a hospital triage is implemented to assess if patient condition has worsened or remained stable, if there is a need for decontamination process, or if a person seeking assistance is a family member looking for victim. Having these procedures ensures that patients inside the hospital prior to incident are protected for potential harmful exposure to contamination agents and other measures. In addition, hospital and providing facilities are a source of information for victims, the media, and family members.
people are being treated for their burns and injuries. Many have died and a lot
Memorial employees were respected members of the community before the storm; they had been the heroes before, saving countless lives in their day to day jobs. Nurses and physicians had already been seen by the public as those who help the hurt and injured. In The New York Times article “Critical Conditions” “author” discusses the conditions in which the employees of Memorial hospital worked in. Even though these employees had to work “without electricity and often in the dark, sleep-deprived doctors and nurses labored determinedly” (Sherwin). These individuals put their safety and health second, a fact that was readily recognized by the general public. After describing how the Memorial staff performed their jobs, the same New York Times article accredited these nurses and doctors as “heroic in their attention to duty” (Sherwin). The Memorial staff was praised and recognized for their efforts in the hospital in the days following the storms of Hurricane Katrina. The general public had no hesitation when claiming these individuals’ actions and even the individuals themselves as
Gaining a better understanding of what exactly my hospital is dealing with will determine the appropriate course of action. Did the explosion send poisonous chemicals into the air or are the patients simply having a reaction from smoke? As the incident commander on duty it is my responsibility to implement the three key strategies of disaster response; protect and preserve life, stabilize the disaster scene, and protect and preserve property. I will also begin implementation of the hospital’s emergency operation plan. Although I have not yet established the cause of illness in the patients, it is important to treat the incident as a potential mass disaster situation. I will proceed with implementing the “3 C’s” of incident leadership; coordination, communication, and cooperation (Reilly & Markenson, 2011). Effective management of this crisis weighs heavily on my ability to coordinate, communicate, and cooperate not only
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
Facility standardized triage and clinical pathways must be developed in order to provide consistent patient care. There should be educational modules employed to train call center staff, providers and support staff. All call center staff should receive consistent training regarding appropriate triaging and follow-up for all patients, especially those with urgent/emergent concerns. Additionally, there should be clear pathways established to direct patients with urgent/emergent needs to the Emergency Department or appropriate specialist for same day care. These pathways should be warm hand-offs between departments ensuring issues are addressed promptly and that care coordination is seamless. When defining standardized triage pathways, facilities
Pre impact conditions mixed with event specific conditions combined with one another during a disaster produce physical and social impacts to a community. The impact from each disaster can be reduced by interventions through emergency management. By assessing these pre impact conditions, an emergency manager can produce social risks and vulnerabilities within their community. Integrating these social risks and vulnerabilities emergency mangers can use the four most important phases in emergency management: preparedness, planning, response, and recovery to benefit their community as a whole.
With patient safety always being the number one priority FTR is the worst case scenario for the hospitalized patient. In an article titled “Failure to Rescue: The Nurse’s Impact” from the Medsurg Nursing Journal author Garvey explains ways FTR can occur “including organizational failure, provider lack of knowledge and failure to realize clinical injury, lack of supervision, and failure to get advice.” Nurses are problem solvers by nature, they heal the sick and help save lives. FTR is a tragic experience for everyone involved. The recent surge in this happening across the country has given FTR cases widespread media coverage. Hospitals are trying to figure out what the root cause is and how they can be prevented. Fortunately, with the advancement of technology and extensive research many hospitals have developed action plans and procedures to help prevent the early warning signs from being
A hurricane is considered a disaster. To be specific it is a natural disaster. So we all searched, "How a hospital prepares for a natural disaster". Bingo, we found numerous resources concerning hospitals and how they prepare for these types of incidents. The fist article was titled, "Hospital Disaster Preparedness: Meeting a Requirement or Preparing for the Worst?"(Paul V. Richter [PVR], 1997). This article explained in detail a hospital plan for disaster in West Columbia, SC. The article was written as a basic manual for all hospitals to follow. It was submitted to South Carolina Hospital Association as a guide. Many things are explained in this article. It explained in detail how the different departments within a medical facility should handle disastrous situations.
Just as it has for the United States as a whole, the world in which emergency first responders work has changed in fundamental ways since September 11, 2001. Members of professions already defined by their high levels of risk now face new, often unknown threats on the job, specifically when responding to a terrorist event. At a basic level, terrorist attacks throughout the world have forced emergency first responders to see the incidents they are asked to respond to in a new light. One distinction between responding to deliberate attacks and responding to natural or technological disasters is that a terrorist attack could become an intentional hostile environment for first responders. In order to exacerbate physical and psychological casualties, terrorists may deliberately target emergency response capabilities and first responders.
Handling serious medical problems are usually the priority of first responders after any catastrophes. However, fatalities of these unfortunate events (earthquake, flooding, tsunami, etc.) also have housing and nourishment concerns, and requires assistance in alleviating their non-urgent physical impairments from environmental dangers and communicable illnesses. Although some victims with non-urgent health problems were not a priority at the time, patients with chronic illness must be cautious to avoid infection or undesirable event. Therefore, health care organizations can assist these patient population, especially patients with cancer with or without current therapy to get an education on the need to be more watchful of their environment
In an event of a fire at the hospital, all employees need to protect the patients and move them to a safe location. The first response to a fire drill is for each department to send someone with a fire extinguisher to the area. The fire must be contained so that other staffs can help move the patients to a safety area. Once the fire is being contained, the nurses should move the patients out one by one. Once the patient is completely removed from the room, a placard will be placed on the closed door alerting all other staff that there is no longer a patient in that room. If the patient has an airborne sickness, then the nurses trained to care for the patient must do all the necessary precaution before removing the patient. Usually these patients
The risk management plan is designed to provide safe treatment and monitoring of patients while in the facilities scope of care. Health care professionals are highly responsible to ensure that education is being provided to patients for future reduction of illness and injury. Managing the organizational risks within the facility along with the external risks within the community is the mission. Management within an emergency is unique in every way. All situati...
Without a doubt, these health policy dilemmas pose challenges when providing emergency medical care. However, they also provide opportunities to create a more efficient and equitable health delivery system. To achieve this goal, emergency medicine must establish a health policy focus that addresses the fragmentation of health care delivery and incorporates patient and nursing
The goals include increasing nurses’ awareness of their roles and responsibilities in preparing for and responding to a disaster. There are web-based courses available for professionals who are not necessarily planning to deploy to a disaster site but working in hospitals, schools or long-term care settings. These individuals could help with the long-range planning of patients involved in a disaster. The course is designed to protect the nurse and the public through the use of universal precautions, protective equipment, evidence collection and isolation precautions. These are areas that the emergency nurse may not consider when volunteering on the front line of a disaster (Stokowski, 2012). Other areas of the course include how to prepare for a disaster, who to notify when an event is unfolding, the assessment, diagnosing and treating of injuries and illnesses, incorporating clinical judgment skills, and supporting the community after the disaster (Orr,
There are natural disasters in the United States, such as tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, and flooding that will affect a community’s infrastructure, and a person’s physical and mental wellbeing. Eight people were killed and 10 missing from flash flooding in Hays County, Texas on May 26, 2015 (Fox News, 2015). When a mental health worker assists with a disaster, he/she will work for an organization in charge, such as the American Red Cross (Sangganjanavanich & Reynolds, 2015). The American Red Cross will assign a position to the crisis counselor in the emergency response stage that might not include counseling. A natural disaster in Hays County will need counselors to assist in several areas, depending if