Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
At the Louisiana Department of Health and
Hospitals, urgent contracting deals were made with
national vendors to acquire medical supplies, medi-
cations, beds, and other equipment. These expen-
sive acquisitions were needed because the state
stockpiles had already been deployed at the LSU
campus sites. The team obtained the rest of its
materials by way of donations from local supply
houses, physicians' offices, and hospitals. Intra-
venous (IV) poles never appeared, so the staff made
do by stringing rope along the ceiling and then
using metal chips to hang the intravenous bags
from the rope. They set up the pharmacy in the area
where the store's pharmacy had originally been.
it afforded a wide space that could accommo-
date incoming buses and ambulances. Triage was
divided into two areas: decontamination/security
and registration/medical triage. The local fire
department set up portable showers outside of
the building where patients showered and were
given clean clothing before entering the building.
Most of the clothing worn by patients had to
be destroyed because of contamination from the
polluted water that had flowed into New Orleans.
After being scanned for weapons by hand-held
security wands, patients proceeded through regis-
tration and into medical triage, where physicians,
nurses, and paramedics assessed their vital signs
and general condition. The state police, National
Guard, and a private security guard firm main-
tained security at the site.
The surge hospital served about 250 patients
over the course of three days. Like the other
post-hurricane surge hospitals, this facility mainly
saw patients whose chronic conditions were made
worse by the loss of their prescribed drugs.
Although the medical staff saw some rashes and
infections from exposure to contaminated water,
their main task was to stabilize the patients
and get them back on their prescribed medica-
tions. The staff maintained paper records and
computer files on all patients that included infor-
mation about where they were transferred or
discharged.
Treating patients
Most patients were assessed at the centralized
triage station at the PMAC Center on the LSU
campus and then transported to the surge hospital
by emergency medical services or bus.
Staffing at the site consisted of physicians,
nurses, technicians, social service workers, and
other health care workers from local hospitals,
home health care agencies, and physicians' offices.
Disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs) from
all parts of the U.S. also descended on the site,
with particular assistance from the DMAT in Iowa.
Most of the professional staff worked in 12-hour
shifts, while nonmedical volunteers put in shifts
that lasted from one to 36 hours.
Volunteer medical workers fulfilled a number
of vital roles, including nursing, pharmacy, regis-
tration, central supply, social service, mental
health, discharge planning, waste handling, respi-
ratory therapy, and food service. In addition, a
number of local restaurants, caterers, and church
groups sent cooked meals to the site. Several
volunteers were dedicated to the scheduling of
professional and nonprofessional staff and also
assisted in the credentialing of the professional
staff. Many local volunteers also sorted and
distributed the donated clothing and toys brought to
the site.
The team decided to locate the triage area in
what had been the oil-change department inside
the store's automotive service center because
Lessons learned
In the confusion that occurred after Hurricane
Katrina hit, communications seemed to be the
weakest link at the site. The telephone system took
a long time to be installed and cellular phones were
inoperable most of the time. When communica-
tions did get through, the information was often
incorrect. For example, the hospital team was told
that the location would be used heavily to free up
space at the two surge facilities set up at LSU.
However, the site was closed after three days while
the field house at the university remained opera-
tional for weeks after the event. Twice word came
that many more patients would soon be arriving,
but additional patients never arrived. In fact, the
