Hospital disaster preparednessHospital-based disaster preparedness center opens in Utah
A 7,000 square-foot disaster preparedness center opened in Salt Lake City; the center is a fully-equipped environment with eighteen patient rooms, medical training mannequins, training classrooms, disaster simulation labs, and a secure supply area; the key is that the preparedness training is done in a working environment
Disaster preparedness and response training took a step forward last week with the official opening of the first hospital-based training center west of the Mississippi River.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Intermountain Center for Disaster Preparedness located at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City will provide training for first responders and health care providers in a working environment.
The 7,000 square-foot center is a fully-equipped environment, with eighteen patient rooms, medical training mannequins, training classrooms, disaster simulation labs, and a secure supply area. The key is that the preparedness training is done in a working environment, according to Ann Allen, the emergency preparedness manager for Intermountain’s Urban Central Region. “It’s a real patient room; it’s not make-believe,” Allen said. “There’s not a falseness. We’re teaching them in their work environment, which is important.”
Edward Francis, the region’s emergency coordinator told Deseret News that hospital staff that has already gone through disaster training has been helped by the techniques staff members learned in disaster training when rooms or floors have flooded, or the computer system has gone down. Francis added that administrators, doctors, nurses, and emergency medical technicians can all benefit from the additional tools they will have at their disposal after undergoing disaster training.
The center has additional room to grow, since the hospital recently reduced the number of beds to 250 from 500 when Intermountain opened its trauma one medical complex in nearby Murray, Utah.
Though officially opened last week, the center has been able to operate for the last year, and has already conducted fifty training sessions for approximately 1,000 people. Allen said that the center is able to set up any scenario, and the teaching takes place in a real working environment. “It’s not just for those big events,” she said. “It would be really horrible if it really happened, but the things we learn from these drills also help when little things go wrong.”
