World events have shown us that hospitals must be better prepared
Every day, hospitals help patients deal with life-threatening challenges. From gunshots to broken bones, emergency departments deal with a plethora of wounds, disease and crisis 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Crisis and disaster preparedness for our hospitals is another task that must constantly be on our minds. In so many parts of the world, war, terrorism and natural disasters are forcing our industry to better train, educate and equip ourselves to perform more effectively and efficiently when our medical centers are faced with these challenges.
In Israel, we unfortunately have much greater awareness, training and practice in this area. As we have seen in just the last few days, we are under constant threat of rocket or terror attacks. We have learned a lot from our experiences, but perhaps even more from the constant readiness training we complete on a regular basis, and have shared with the rest of the world. But we are not alone. Headlines in the news remind us of the war in Ukraine, the crisis in Yemen and Sudan, tsunamis in southeast Asia, domestic terrorism in Texas, making the issue of hospital crisis and disaster preparedness a global one.
Hospitals around the world should be doing the same, as the training will save lives.
Training drills are vital in assessing a hospital's readiness and identifying gaps in plan implementation. Moreover, they allow hospital staff to practice responding to emergencies in a controlled environment, which can help mitigate the potential chaos of a real-life crisis. A good drill will also highlight critical infrastructure and staffing that a hospital needs to invest in further, or possibly training opportunities for some current staffers to ensure that if the worst ever happens, the team and the facility will be able to respond.
Moreover, terror attacks carried out with chemical, biological or radiological agents can have catastrophic impacts both on medical centers and on the communities that surround them. Hospital preparedness drills aimed at responding to such events can help health care workers understand how to deal with patients who have been exposed to contaminated substances and protect themselves against contamination. Furthermore, such drills can help hospital staff learn how to recognize and report potential hazardous incidents, thereby reducing the risks to patients, staff and visitors.
Despite the Geneva Conventions, Israeli hospitals are not protected from being attacked by rockets, and we have started building underground facilities so that in the event of war, we can move our patients to fortified areas to better protect them. We have also begun to build our hospitals with rocket- and missile-proof materials and have taken other proactive measures. While all of these are helpful, it is still critical that we run training exercises with our staff so that in the event of an attack, everyone knows what to do.
Just recently, our hospital went through a large training drill in which we simulated a few different scenarios that all hospitals should prepare for today. The first was a rocket attack on the hospital itself. The second was an attack on a chemical plant or if a missile hit a truck carrying chemicals and we had an influx of patients who were exposed to chemicals.
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In today’s world, hospitals in other countries need to prepare training and simulations for their staff for situations like these so that they, too, are prepared should they face an attack. This is no longer a concern only for hospitals in Israel, but as there are conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and other countries, these preparedness drills should be done in other countries as well. Preparedness drills serve for training but also demonstrate a hospital's commitment to the safety and well-being of its patients and staff and can help foster a culture of collaboration and communication among hospital staff, thereby enhancing morale and reducing the likelihood of panic during a real-life crisis.
A well-executed preparedness drill may be the definitive factor between survival and loss of life when these tragic events occur. Hospitals must be prepared to handle various crisis and disaster scenarios.
Eran Rotman, M.D., MHA, serves as the deputy director of Beilinson Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in central Israel. Rotman is a senior lecturer on disaster medicine at Bar-Ilan University and has participated in humanitarian missions, most recently to Ukraine in 2022.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: hospitals must be better prepared
