Nursing and Other Unit Leaders Direct February Drill
BWH facilitated a hospital-wide tabletop disaster drill on Thursday, February 27, in lieu of a cancelled citywide drill as part of the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS) that was scheduled for that day. The drill focused on organizing the four section areas - Logistics, Planning, Finance and Operations - of HEICS, which was first introduced by Partners HealthCare in June 2002.
Emphasizing the functional aspects of each section, unit leaders—including Nursing leaders Judy Perron, RN, MSN, and Jean Hickey, RN,—worked to identify team membership, review job action sheets, and establish a primary staging area for team efforts as well as a method of reporting information to section chiefs.
“Drill participants really took a concerted look at the role each individual plays in HEICS,” said Tom O’Regan, program manager, BWH Emergency Preparedness. “Thursday’s efforts will definitely help us continue to refine the BWH response to disaster moving forward.”
Additional components to the drill included the distribution and testing of Nextel telephones, which will be used as a means of communication among all unit leaders during a disaster situation. The new Emergency Operation or “Command” Center located in the Duncan Reid Conference Room was also activated and tested. Status boards, used by each HEICS section to provide status reports and updates to the Command Center, were tested. Finally, a formal evaluation group was set up under the guidance of Richard Zane, MD, vice chairman, BWH Emergency Medicine, to measure HEICS at BWH and offer insight into improvement.
“After the citywide drill this past November, BWH came away with a list of ‘lessons learned,’” said O’Regan. “We definitely addressed all of those lessons on Thursday and generated a new list for the next exercise. While we have a lot more work ahead of us, BWH is definitely headed in a good direction.”