Hospital Preparedness
Hospitals across the country are an important link in the community preparedness chain. Their planning is not only essential to communicating their own capabilities to emergency medical and other local preparedness partners, but also to identifying their own gaps in such capabilities as medical surge, communicable disease surveillance and prevention, evacuation, etc. We helped WVU Healthcare – Jefferson Medical Center (located in Ranson, West Virginia on the western edge of the National Capital Region) meet its Joint Commission requirements for emergency operations planning by defining a command structure; outlining primary and secondary communications; defining and reinforcing the supply chain (i.e., resources and assets); initially developing security and lockdown guidelines; and outlining a number a ways to supplement patient care capabilities for emergencies both internal and external to the hospital. The project concluded with a tabletop exercise attended by the hospital’s leadership team to familiarize managers with the new document.
