Countywide ‘paper drill’ helps keep hospital ready
Countywide paper drill’ helps keep hospital ready
Registrars man treatment areas
Personnel at Morton Plant Mease Hospital in Clearwater, FL, regularly take part in a countywide mass-casualty drill, which keeps them in "a constant state of readiness," says Diana Noblet, CHAM, patient access services manager.
"We feel confident we’re ready," Noblet adds. "We have looked at our disaster process and not found any changes desirable."
The countywide exercise is "a paper drill," notes Beth Hardy, a hospital spokeswoman. "We use paper patients — actual slips of paper — instead of having mock patients with stuff on them. Each piece of paper is a patient."
The disaster drill, most recently involving a mock school bus accident, is set by county emergency management officials, and "different patients are routed to different hospitals," Hardy says. "We know we have seven children coming in, and we walk through the entire process of how it would be [in the event of a real disaster]."
Directly outside the ambulance entrance to the emergency department (ED) there is a disaster cart, explains Noblet. "It contains things to physically protect the [response] team, such things as eye protection, personal protective gear, a mask and gloves. There is also a packet for each patient."
The packet, she adds, contains "paperwork to handle any type of emergency," including a triage sheet and all clinical profiles, as well as a bag for patient valuables. A number assigned to each item matches the number assigned to that patient on the log where the patient is checked in, Noblet says.
"That packet and patient are passed along to a clinician who accompanies the patient to different treatment areas," she says. Registrars are on hand in those areas, as well as at the triage point, Noblet adds.
Patients who are unable to give their names are designated as Jane or John Doe, and assigned an approximate age, she notes. Those patients’ date of birth always begins "1/1," she says, to let hospital personnel know the age is approximate.
New ED facilitates process
Morton Plant Mease Hospital’s new ED, which opened several months ago, is designed so that triage takes place quickly and efficiently, Hardy points out. "Our daily process facilitates the handling [of a disaster]."
Patients are triaged into one of five ED areas, she says. Those include express care, intermediate care, acute care, psychiatric care, and obstetric/gynecologic care.
"The triage nurse is adjacent to the lobby, where the public walks in," Hardy explains. "As they walk in, patients are seen by order of severity. It’s not the traditional setting where people are sitting in a chair waiting for a long period. The goal is not to have people in that lobby, but to get them into a room as quickly as possible."
When emergency medical services personnel arrive with a patient, they look up at a computer screen that displays the assigned room number for that patient, Noblet notes. "There are no ambulances lined up. They know where to go."
A yellow light above a patient room signals the registrar that a patient is in the room, she says. Because the ED encompasses 37,000 square feet, she adds, "it’s humanly impossible to see all the rooms and watch for someone entering."
There is a computer in every patient treatment room, Hardy points out, which allows bedside registration. "[Access staff] go to every patient, and register right at the bedside. It’s been received very, very well by our customers," she says.
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