Emergency Management and Preparedness (Nursing)

00:00 Welcome back everyone.

00:03 Health care facilities and their staff play a key role in emergency preparedness and response efforts for all types of events, including natural or man-made disasters, pandemic outbreaks, or terrorist attacks.

00:16 A disaster is a type of emergency that due to its complexity, scope, or duration, threatens the health care center's capabilities and requires outside assistance to sustain patient care, safety, or security functions.

00:30 Health care organizations may experience a variety of disasters.

00:34 They could be weather related such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, terrorism, including bioterrorism, biological and chemical agents, or chemical incidents.

00:47 With growing awareness of the significance of health care facilities response to emergencies, many are reassessing and upgrading their existing emergency preparedness plans.

00:57 General elements of emergency management for health care facilities include mitigation, preparedness response, and recovery.

01:07 Hospitals should also plan for a large scale incident until federal and state public health groups developed communication plans and networks to address such incidents.

01:17 A facility risk assessment is a multidisciplinary process with representatives from all services involved in an emergency situation.

01:25 This includes infectious disease, infection control, and safety staff, to help assist differentiating biological from chemical agent exposures and in follow-up management.

01:38 A hazard vulnerability analysis is a process which includes assessing the probability of each type of event, the risk it would pose, and the organization's current level of preparedness.

01:52 It should also take into account nearby community resources likely to be affected or called upon for assistance, including schools, churches, public transportation, news media, telephone and communication systems, voluntary organizations, such as the Red Cross sand the Salvation Army, restaurants, food suppliers.

02:15 Training resources include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the CDC, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the FDA, and the Emergency Management Institute and Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise known as EMI or FEMA.

02:32 Training should include ethical issues health care personnel may face in a disaster, such as treatment issues, tracking and disclosure of patient information, patient diversion or moving a patient from one facility to the next if you no longer have capacity.

02:48 Alternate care facilities, mass fatality management, and restricted access.

02:55 Exercise and drills provide health care personnel an opportunity to practice before a real event.

03:01 Structure and focus direction really help minimize chaos and confusion during a disaster.

03:07 The Hospital Emergency Incident Command System is an emergency management system which employs a logical management structure, defined responsibilities, clear reporting channels, and common nomenclature, meaning you use the same words, so everyone understands what's being said.

03:26 When the situation escalates to a level that endangers the health and/or safety of the facility's patients, staff, and visitors, evacuation of the endangered areas is necessary.

03:37 Safety and continuity of care among evacuees during a disaster depend on planning, preparedness, and mitigation activities performed before the event occurs.

03:47 So thinking about evacuation security, facility security includes the planning for facility lockdown to prevent access by unauthorized individuals.

03:57 The procedure must also consider traffic and crowd control as more individuals are identified as victims.

04:04 Also remember, family members and the media are likely to converge on the facility.

04:09 And finally, planning should include determining staff resources that can be deployed to support hospital security staff.

04:16 Communication between news media and hospital media relations can support the health care organization by conveying important and realistic information to the public.

04:25 Remember, health care facilities and their staff play a key role in emergency preparedness and response efforts for all types of events, including natural or man-made disasters, pandemic outbreaks, or terrorist attacks.

04:38 So in thinking of everything that we discussed today, what are the four types of disasters healthcare organizations might experience? They could be weather related such as hurricanes, floods or tornadoes.

04:55 Terrorism, including bioterrorism.

04:58 Biological and chemical agents.

05:00 And finally, chemical incidents.

05:03 I hope you've enjoyed today's video on Emergency Management and Preparedness.

05:06 Thanks so much for watching.