A 3-year Health Care Coalition Experience in Advancing Hospital Evacuation Preparedness. Issue 6 (19th September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lowe, John J.; Hansen, Keith F.; Sanger, Kristine K.; Obaid, Jannah M.
• Is Part Of: Prehospital and disaster medicine. Volume 31:Issue 6(2016)
• Page Start: 658
• Page End: 662
• Publication Date: 2016-09-19
• Subjects: disaster response, -- emergency preparedness, -- evacuation exercises, -- health care coalition, -- hospital evacuation; Emergency medical services -- Periodicals; Emergency medicine -- Periodicals; Disaster medicine -- Periodicals; 616.025
• DOI: 10.1017/S1049023X16000996
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1049-023X

Abstract

Abstract: This report outlines a 3-year health care coalition effort to advance and test community capacity for a large-scale hospital evacuation. The multi-year effort utilized a variety workshops, seminars, webinars, tabletops, functional exercises, and culminated with a full-scale exercise testing hospital evacuation. While most hospital evacuation exercises focus on internal movement of patients, this exercise process tested command-level decision making and it tested external partners such as transportation agencies, law enforcement, receiving hospitals, and local emergency management. This process delivered key coalition-building activities and offered a variety of training and exercise opportunities to assist a number of organizations, all at different stages of hospital evacuation planning. The 2012 Hospital Preparedness Program outlined the incorporation of health care coalition activities to transform individual organization preparedness to community-level readiness. This report outlines a health care coalition effort to deliver training and exercises to advance community capacity for a large-scale hospital evacuation. JJ Lowe, KF Hansen, KK Sanger, JM Obaid .A 3-year health care coalition experience in advancing hospital evacuation preparedness .Prehosp Disaster Med .2016 ;31 (6 ):658 –662 .