In emergencies, hospital preparedness goes beyond planning

by Alicia Caramenico, FierceHealthcare With roughly 144 patients injured from the Boston Marathon bombings--and 62 victims still at Boston hospitals, including 12 people in critical condition--hospital disaster planning has been put to the test. While hospital emergency departments are required to have and evaluate their mass-casualty plans, the horrible events in Boston this week not only reinforced the importance of testing plans for all types and sizes of emergencies, but also the fact that sometimes hospitals will need more than just a plan. As one hospital director told me, an emergency response plan is no good unless hospital workers can execute it. "A plan sitting in a folder on a desk is not going to be very helpful unless the providers in the emergency department know about that plan and know how to implement the plan," Selim Suner, M.D, the director of disaster medicine and emergency preparedness in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, told FierceHealthcare. Read the full article at FierceHealthcare
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs