A systematic approach to very important person preparedness for a trauma center.

Hospitals across the United States are more involved in disaster/rapid response planning than ever. This collaboration is often driven by continuing federal and state preparedness and all-hazards planning efforts that provide cooperative agreement and/or grant support. These efforts currently include programs administered by the US assistant secretary for preparedness and response, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Department of Defense, and the US Department of Homeland Security. Beyond legislated support or mandates, key emergency management regulations governing hospital-specific disaster planning and response activities are required of hospitals by The Joint Commission, the largest national hospital accrediting body. Despite this ongoing, heightened awareness and inclusion of health care in local and regional emergency response planning, there is 1 partnership to yet strengthen: the relationship between community trauma centers and US Secret Service staff responsible for White House travel and health care contingency plans. One Michigan hospital system designed a program that has made preevent communications and preparedness for rapid very important person response with the Secret Service as important as other local all-hazards planning; the evolution of this partnership is the focus of this article.

Hospital-based special needs patient decontamination: lessons from the shower.

OBJECTIVES: A hospital-based decontamination team tested whether it could (1) perform effective technical decontamination while maintaining safety of staff and patients; (2) safely accommodate unique needs in the showers, including guide dogs and motorized wheelchairs; (3) identify needs of special needs populations by patient type, including blindness, hearing loss, and cognitive learning disabilities; (4) outline effective use of federal preparedness funds to support planning and execution of tabletop and mock victim drills; and (5) demonstrate the ability of a community hospital to act as a catalyst for community-wide disaster response improvements. DESIGN: A series of five disaster exercises were used to test hypotheses and to generate quality improvement results. SETTING: Fixed emergency department decontamination facilities. PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS: A total of 39 hospital-based decontamination team members, 40 other drill staff and 35 mock victims were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Three priority decontamination operations changes resulted from each of the five completed drills. RESULTS: Formulated prioritized list of decontamination team procedural changes to improve patient safety and technical decontamination and to generate a table of best practices to share. CONCLUSIONS: With enhanced training, disaster drills participation of community response agencies and special needs patients, community hospitals can improve safety while accommodating unique patient needs.