Imagine for a moment that you’re driving into work, a job that you’ve dedicated so much time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears into caring for others. For most, you care for people you’ve never met until they come into your facility or under your care.
The day is starting like any other day, but per the National Weather Service, you know that your community is threatened by a severe thunderstorm that is “capable of producing a tornado.” As you continue your drive, you contemplate what you’d do if a tornado touched down while at work… You find yourself asking many questions.
Where would I go to stay safe? I can imagine the patients and their families screaming in fear and trying to corral them to get somewhere safe. Can we get everything done before the tornado hits our facility? What if the tornado was an F5? Would it flatten the building?
I remember seeing the news a couple of years ago about an agency like mine that took a direct hit from a tornado. They didn’t have power for days, and their phone lines were down. I wonder how they called for help. I wonder if their staff just showed up to help, and if not, when did their staff who were on shift get to go home? Would my relief relieve me at the end of my shift? Would I ever be able to go home to my family?
I only live 10 minutes away; how would I know my family was okay? Did the tornado hit our house too? How would I find out? I couldn’t focus or stay at work if I didn’t know my family was home and safe! However, I couldn’t just leave these people who needed my help!
What if the media showed up? I’m sure my boss would take care of talking with them, but what if they were injured and couldn’t address media inquiries? Would that be my job, too?
Then you come back to your reality and wonder, why am I even thinking like this? We’re never going to have a tornado touchdown in our community. The National Weather Service never gets this right…
But they were right! Now all you hear is screaming that’s being drowned out by the increasing roar of that “freight train” barreling towards your facility!
Now that your agency’s disaster plans, policies, procedures, and continuity of operations are being called to action—are you, your staff, and your community partners ready to work collaboratively through this nightmare? Do you know what you can expect from your staff and partners through this chaos? Do they know what to expect from you, their leadership? Have you planned, trained, and tested those plans? In every disaster, there are always elements that are outside of our control. Exercising, and completing the areas identified in an improvement plan, WILL help you gain control and minimize the number of elements in this situation.
Will you be able to keep your staff and patients safe? Will you be able to continue to provide care by maintaining your day-to-day operations? When was the last time you tested those plans, policies, procedures, and continuity of operations? We can help! Your community and agency could be the next news story!
Do your BEST. Prepare for the WORST.
The Torchlight Preparedness team isn’t just here to make a living; we are here to impact the living. For that reason, our community-wide exercises are open to all medical facilities. Examples include long-term care, assisted living, nursing homes, doctor offices, ambulatory surgery centers, hospice houses, home health, critical access hospitals, hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, end-stage renal disease (or dialysis centers), and more.
If your agency falls under the CMS ruling, where they’ve placed your facility into one of the 17 medical facility types, then the active threat disaster exercise is tailor-made for your team. This functional or full-scale exercise will separate the medical facilities into inpatient, outpatient, and home health categories, allowing the Torchlight team to inject the most appropriate information throughout this disaster exercise.
For additional information, please click here to select the proper exercise for your agency or facility. Until then, Benjamin Franklin said it very well, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Hit our buy now easy button to schedule your community-wide exercise today.
This Exercise will Potentially Exercise Components of the Following Community Lifelines:
Security and Safety
Communications
Health and Medical
Transportation
Comments