By Rachel Beck, Lebanon Express writer | Posted: Tuesday, November 7, 2006 12:00 am
A sign on the door warned that all who entered had to wear a surgical mask. Inside, doctors and nurses attended to about 10 patients who were suffering from flu symptoms. In the corner, a sheet-covered body lay motionless on a gurney.
Fortunately, none of the patients in the surreal scene were sick or dead. Just a couple of hours later, they would walk out of Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital and back to their normal lives.
The “patients" were helping SLCH test its emergency preparedness in the event of a health crisis. The state-wide drill, which took place Nov. 1-2, helped hospitals test their preparedness in the face of a simulated flu pandemic.
This was the first year that a state-wide exercise has taken place. Last year, the SLCH participated in a regional exercise to test a scenario in which there was a pneumonic plague outbreak.
The Department of Health Services, which coordinated the exercise, created a scenario in which a flu pandemic that originated in Europe and Asia had spread to Oregon. According to the Center for Disease Control, “a flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity, and for which there is no vaccine. The disease spreads easily person-to-person, causes serious illness, and can sweep across the country and around the world in very short time."
The drill had several goals, including:
€ To test the ability of SLCH to communicate with its own staff and with other hospitals, even if cell phones, e-mail or land lines didn't work.
€ To test response time of the hospital in receiving excess patients, setting up and running an alternative care site.
€ To test activation of the Incident Command System and Center.
And all of this had to be accomplished without disrupting the normal, day-to-day hospital operations.
“The emphasis is we're trying to make it as real as possible without interrupting patient care," said Brad Canfield,
information officer for the hospital.
At the entrance, a man handed out fliers explaining the drill. But other than that, things seemed to be business as usual
“We really try to over-communicate even though most of (the patients) won't even know that it's happening," Canfield said.
At the core of the hospital's crisis response is the Incident Command System, a chain of command that goes into effect in the event of any emergency. The system is uniform for every hospital.
At the top of the chain is the Incident Commander, who oversees four divisions: Logistics, Planning, Finance, and Operations. Each branch is assigned a color, and during the drill members of each division wore vests accented with their identifying color. The goal is to make it clear and concise as possible for staff and patients to communicate with each other.
During the drill, members of the Incident Command System gathered in a designated Incident Command Center, a busy room where staff were updated on the situation and responses to new developments were planned. Teleconference equipment allowed staff to communicate in real time with other hospitals in the Samaritan system.
Parts of the drill were simulated, but much of it was rehearsed as realistically as possible.
Students in the Health Careers class at Lebanon High School were recruited to act as patients in the drill. Though they were all teenagers, some of them were assigned roles as old people or children, with a variety of issues, such as a language barrier, deafness or pregnancy. The various roles helped hospital staff gauge how they would respond to special situations within the faux emergency, such as how to communicate with non-English speaking patients.
SLCH is well-equipped to care for patients who don't speak English. Special phones in the hospital are outfitted with two receivers. The health care provider picks up one receiver and the patient picks up another, and both are connected to a translations service with a live translator. The patient and provider can then talk - via the translator - to each other.
Canfield said that hypothetical situations large and small were addressed by the drill. Everything from how to contact staff if the phones were out, to how to feed staff once they were there, were addressed and tested.
Some of the situations in the drill were grimly necessary. In a scenario with pandemic flu, there would be a number of deaths. The hospital has agreements with local mortuaries that, in the event of an emergency, the mortuaries would help store bodies. If there was a need for even more help, the state would come in and assist.
Jan Hull, assistant manager of the same-day care department, and Pam Hays, manager of the Girod Birth Center and acute care center, are co-chairs of the emergency management committee. The committee meets at least once a month to keep the hospital emergency-ready. Hull and Hays were the “driving force" behind the drill and helped plan the whole thing out, Canfield said.
The Lebanon hospital has participated in numerous other drills, including for bus crashes, fires and chemical spills.
“We try to target things that need to be fixed," Canfield said.
For more information about pandemic flu, visit www.pandemicflu.gov.
How you can prepare for an emergency
There are several ways to prepare for the event of a health emergency such as a flu pandemic. The Linn County Department of Health Services recommends that citizens:
€ Create a family emergency plan and practice it.
€ Listen to local media reports and follow instructions from experts.
€ Know school emergency plans and contact numbers.
€ Know your neighbors and identify those with special needs.
€ Make a plan for your pets in case of an emergency.
€ Prepare an emergency kit. A complete list of supplies may be found at www.redcross.org or www.ready.gov.
Rachel Beck may be reached at 258-3151 or rachel.beck@lee.net