Disaster Response Team - How the Health Care Community Handles Large Scale Disasters

Handling a wide scale community disaster requires planning and practice. The various community medical service providers must work together to form a cohesive, organized team. To be able to merge the providers into one singularly governed entity is an exercise in communication and coordination. The entire health care community works together to learn, practice and implement this type of coordinated response.

The local hospital is customarily the focal point, or base station for the coordination of services to the community. Mainly because they have generators and the ability to continue operating even under the most adverse conditions. A command center is set up in a designated area or building adjacent to the hospital. Initially the hospital provides a management team. In the case of a pandemic flu outbreak FEMA, the federal emergency management agency, would send in a response team to take over. Health care workers are all educated as to the way the FEMA disaster response team is set up. Everyone is required to use "plain language" with no job related jargon so that communications are clear between agencies. Once the disaster has been called, and the plan put into motion things progress quickly and efficiently.

All parts of the local health care community are an integral part of a mass disaster plan. There are many things that must be established to provide adequate preparation. The health care team members must meet and decide on a written plan of action for handling disasters. Everything from, where to get fuel to how to transport employees has to be decided upon. Evacuation routes and designated facilities will be agreed upon by all the participants. Once all the details have been combined in a written plan, the community will physically practice the plan assuring everything works. Without physical practice, there would be no way to determine which parts of the plan needs adjusting and where.

Most communities have a mass disaster practice every two to three years. Occasionally the state leaders will also get into the action and have a state wide practice. The community leaders will set up a mock disaster situation, such as flu pandemic, plane crash or other event. Most of the time the local community colleges will have their students volunteer to be victims. Victims are "dressed" and the scene staged with fake injuries, blood and the like. The call is put out, and the community has to go into action. The fake patients are moved through the system as if they were real. Fire, rescue, police, sheriff, hospitals, and any other emergency or health care services enact their designated disaster plans. After the drill, the community comes together to see what went right, and what needs revision. Only by physical practice can it be determined if the plan will work.

Disaster plans try to encompass a wide range of potential issues. There are plans for temporary shelters in case nursing homes or hospitals have to be evacuated. There are portable decontamination units that can be deployed, set up and functioning in less than thirty minutes. These are especially important for handling chemical exposures. It is fascinating the number of the problems most local communities can handle and the scale and planning that has been done. Each community can feel safe that their health care professionals are capable of working together to adequately handle almost any disaster.

William Lee