Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
healthcare facility to maintain the safety and
well being of its employees and patients. The
purchase of Tyvek
®
suits as well as loose fitting
PAPR hoods are highly recommended for the
clinical personnel who are tasked with treating a
patient presenting to a hospital with an unknown
substance. The hospitals have also utilized funds to
purchase decontamination units to assure a greater
number of patients decontaminated in a lesser
period of time. Many of these decontamination
systems are inflatable or made of “PVC” piping
to maintain patient modesty, facilitate technical
decontamination and expedite patients through the
decontamination system.
OSH's “Best Practices” document identifies two
zones for the treatment of victims in need of
decontamination; a “Hospital Decon Zone” and a
“Post-Hospital Decon Zone.” The assumption is
that the decontamination of possibly contaminated
victims will take place in an outside area adja-
cent to the ED and the staff will don all of the
appropriate PPE as recommended by OSHA to
manage these patients. The Hospital Decon Zone
therefore is the external zone where a full-scale
operation is underway and the Post Hospital Decon
Zone is the actual ED itself. The lines of demar-
cation between these two zones are the entrance
doors to the hospital ED.
members of the world of decontamination, inter-
operability, and incident management. As time
evolves and hospitals become increasingly better at
what they do with regard to emergency prepared-
ness initiatives, drills and exercise scenarios will
increase in complexity, time commitment and
scope. As long as the evaluations are performed
in a timely and objective manner and after action
reports are submitted to establish recommenda-
tions for process improvement, then the acute care
hospital is destined to increase its level of prepared-
ness and inevitably assist in the protection of the
employee, patient and visitor. The hospital will
continue to add value to the community and to the
county and state that it resides in and will be a
resource for the local planning efforts.
Hospitals will continue to respond to and recover
from paradigm shifts and will continue to work
together with their partners in the healthcare arena
to meet the ever-changing needs of the medical
institution.
22.4.1 Examples of Large Scale Hospital
Disaster Drills
April 4th, 2005: Top Off III Drill, Hartford
Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut
On Monday, April 4th, 2005, Hartford Hospital
participated in the nations largest, full-scale inter-
national drill called “Top Off 3.” Top Off,
which is an acronym for “Top Officials,” was
a multi-state, multi-agency drill that was devel-
oped by the federal Department of Homeland
Security to examine the “Top Officials” in the
United States and their response to an act of
terrorism or natural catastrophe. In early 2004,
the Federal Government chose Connecticut along
with New Jersey, the United Kingdom, and Canada
as participants in this unprecedented international
exercise.
Connecticut exercised its response to a terrorist
release of a chemical agent, its ability to manage
casualties from this incident as well as the ability
to plan and implement a recovery process. Another
unprecedented objective was the inclusion of
Connecticut's 32 acute care hospitals and their
ability to decontaminate affected patients, manage
22.4 Drills
Clearly, the hospitals are becoming more and more
involved in the practice of incident response as a
First Receiver institution. The practice of hosting
drills and exercises is becoming ever so important
due to the simple fact that hospitals learn from
their mistakes. A hospital is not only required by
its accrediting body to perform large scale drills,
but it is provided incentives to do so by state and
federal agencies. It is required to assume safe and
efficient means of personal protection and patient
care under regulatory bodies such as OSHA and it
is sought out by local emergency planning organi-
zations to play an integral role in the local, regional
and county response practices.
Hospitals play a key role in the business of
drills and exercises. They are also very important
