All Entries in the "Emergency management" Category
After the Fort Hood shootings, Twitter proves useful for one hospital
For many people, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are frequently used to quote movie lines or discuss whether they had coffee or hair of the dog with their Corn Flakes. But from a professional standpoint, The Joint Commission is encouraging the use of social sites for emergency management purposes.
Thursday’s shootings at Fort Hood, TX, let one facility rev up its Twitter presence with useful updates and information. [more]
Try a free sample of our customizable paper patients
After months of development, we’re happy to announce our new Emergency Preparedness Solutions series, which we think you’ll like.
The highlight for me, because it’s something I’ve wanted to see us publish for a long time, is a collection of 80 paper patients that are customizable to your hospital’s drill or triage efforts. [more]
CDC revisions continue to recommend N95 use, but acknowledge supply shortages
The CDC issued revised interim guidelines yesterday to protect healthcare workers from the H1N1 swine flu virus.
The biggest news is that the CDC continues to recommend that healthcare workers wear N95 respirators when [more]
Former Joint Commission VP among those appearing at our one-day emergency management conference
Joseph Cappiello
Get help analyzing your hospital’s disaster plans while also bolstering your professional development during HCPro’s Emergency Management Coordinator’s Workshop, which takes place October 26 in Atlanta.
Our experts for the program include:
- Joseph Cappiello, chair of Cappiello & Associates in Elmhurst, IL, and former vice president for accreditation field operations at The Joint Commission
- James Kendig, vice president of safety and security for Health First, Inc., based in Rockledge, FL
- Mary Russell, senior hospital project manager at the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Public Health Preparedness
Click here to read our speakers’ full bios and our show’s agenda.
Most of you are well prepared for disaster response, but there’s always the unpredictable event
I really think — this being my ever so humble opinion based on my observations — that most hospitals are adequately prepared to respond to the emergencies they have identified as being the most likely to occur.
That’s not to say there are not improvement opportunities, because there will always be [more]
The challenges that tie healthcare facilities back to 9/11
Back in 2001, I remember talking to quite a few hospital safety officers and emergency planners about the way the world had changed after 9/11. It wasn’t just the hijacked jets in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania — soon after, the nation was in the midst of anthrax attacks via the mail and there was also concern about potential smallpox bioterrorism.
Yet I re-read some of the articles I wrote at the time and was struck by [more]
Evaluating your emergency management inventory process
Joint Commission standard EM.03.01.01, EP 3 requires an annual review of your emergency management inventory process.
This is where you look back at exercises and real events and see [more]
New York Times story is a “must read” for emergency planners
The New York Times just published a sad yet enlightening account of what happened at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
Many of you will remember that Memorial Medical was isolated and without power for days as employees and patients suffered through terrible conditions in the sweltering heat. Much of the story focused on allegations of clinicians euthanizing [more]
Hospital fire reveals several truths about emergency preparedness
There’s an update on a fire at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT, in this week’s issue of our free sister e-newsletter, Emergency Management Alert.
As a consultant, I frequently ask folks what kind of scenarios they are using to comply with EM.03.01.03, EP 3, which mandates an emergency response exercise, including an escalating scenario in which the hospital is unable to be supported by the local community.
One of the truisms I’ve observed over time is that [more]
H1N1 call brings up hospital access control, sick employees
I listened in on a CMS open forum conference call this afternoon about H1N1 preparedness in healthcare facilities, and the topic of infection control in hospitals came up.
A CDC representative noted that [more]
