Hospitals put to the test during natural disaster drill
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE — Employees at nine hospitals in Northwest Arkansas tested their responses to a large-scale natural disaster in a drill on Wednesday.
Organized by Northwest Regional Hospital Bioterrorism Preparedness Committee, the exercise presented difficulties that would result from four or five tornados hitting the area. The committee is part of a statewide effort coordinated by the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services and the Arkansas Hospital Association The scenarios were fed to hospitals in Benton, Boone, Carroll and Washington counties from inside the Washington County Emergency Operations Center in Fayetteville.
Power failures and mass casualties trailed in the paths of imaginary tornadoes that struck the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Bentonville and Razorback Pipeline Co. in Rogers, among other places, said Pam Ward, a homeland security analyst for Information and Infrastructure Technologies Inc. Her firm is a subsidiary of Electronic Warfare Associates Inc. of Herndon, Va.
Hospital representatives sat at computer screens in what was once a juvenile detention center hospital and called in updates flashed on two projection screens. This drill presented a worst-case scenario for medical staffs, Ward said.
This is the second full-scale drill conducted by the organization, said Danna Bell, co-chairman of Northwest Regional Hospital Bioterrorism Preparedness Committee.
“There’s always communications issues,” she said.
Wednesday’s drill covered all means of communication down to hand-held radios, Bell said. One thing that has improved since last year’s first drill is the involvement of hospital administrators, she said.
Leading up to the day were several meetings with top hospital officials, Bell said. One goal was to ensure that all four county departments of emergency management were brought in.
Bell said it is also important that employees know the exercise wasn’t “for a grade.” The intent was to have an adequate assessment of hospital capabilities.
“It’s all about learning and how to get better prepared,” she said.
While the hospitals weren’t competing with each other, employees of the Fayetteville VA Medical Center set a new record for setting up their decontamination center, an 8-by-12 trailer. Employees shaved two minutes off their time by getting the unit ready in 13 minutes, said Judy McKee, a spokesman for the VA center.
The unit was last constructed in October after flour from a road race was left in front of the John Paul Hammerschmidt Federal Building in Fayetteville, and the VA hospital was put on alert for possible contamination.
On Wednesday, staff volunteers from various divisions suited up in plastic coveralls, taped on rubber boots and donned masks to decontaminate the four “patients” contaminated by anhydrous ammonia during a wreck on the highway.
The patients were led into the trailer and washed off before being assessed by medical staff waiting on the other side. The process is necessary to protect the patients already inside the hospital, said Dave Whittington, safety coordinator for the VA hospital.
“If you just get their clothing off and wrap them in a sheet you’ve reduced exposure 80 percent,” he said.
Susan Hansen, a VA employee, was one of six evaluators watching the scene unfold. Her report was among those compiled and reviewed by the group after the five-hour drill.
There will be a review today, and a final, written report will be presented by Information and Infrastructure Technologies at a later date.
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