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Go beyond the norm with drills when preparing for JCAHO

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, September 15, 2006

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The JCAHO wants emergency planning to push the boundaries of comfort, especially during drills.

For example, hospitals might test their plans on an early scenario of a bird flu outbreak, but then add twists such as flooding or loss of electricity.

Also consider more mundane issues (e.g., storage space for extra supplies). "In a circumstance [such as a bird flu pandemic] you need two liters of water per person," says Louise Simkonis, RN, BSN, CCRN, the hospital's infection control and employee health coordinator. "Where would you store it?"

Surveyors also asked staff at Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital in Worcester, MA, how

• the hospital would handle an influx of infected patients during a pandemic
• clinicians would deal with casualty trauma
• the facility would handle earthquakes and bomb threats
• the hospital would react to a serious infection (e.g., anthrax) in the building

Preparation for pandemics and disasters is a hospitalwide effort, but realistically it can be challenging to include all key staff, Simkonis says.

To learn more, go to Briefings on Infection Control (BOIC). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire October issue of BOIC. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of BOIC have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their October issue.

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