2022 Disaster Conference
This session was presented by Kaiser Permanente Northern California and provides emergency management personnel with an overview of hospital evacuation considerations when there are only minutes to hours to prepare. The presentation reviews the life cycle of an evacuation event including the Pre-Evacuation, Evacuation, and Post-Evacuation stages, with a focus on the preparedness and response actions in each stage.
The Guidelines for Developing Best Practices to Assist California Hospitals in Preparing for and Responding to a Water Disruption toolkit may be used for hospital water disruption planning activities.
This presentation from Barton Health provides insights on response and business continuity plans in the event of a wildfire evacuation. Presenters share lessons learned from the full-scale evacuation of Barton Memorial Hospital and skilled-nursing facility in response to the Caldor Fire. The presentation reviews the logistical challenges of evacuating and repopulating a bi-state rural health care system, explore staffing and personnel challenges and considerations, and shares lessons learned.
Public health emergencies, natural disasters, and mass casualty events require hospitals to implement triage protocols to prioritize care based on patient severity and treatment likelihood. Hospitals must strive for equitable access, particularly for vulnerable populations, while addressing the ethical implications of resource allocation.
Evacuation of a health care facility may be necessary following an emergency such as a facility fire or damage from a natural disaster such as an earthquake or flooding. The decision to evacuate a health care facility will be based on the ability of the facility to meet the medical needs of the patients. Immediate threats to life, such as internal fires or unstable structures, will require emergent evacuation, while other situations may allow for a planned and phased evacuation.
To maintain daily operations and patient care services, health care facilities need to develop an Emergency Water Supply Plan (EWSP) to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a total or partial interruption of the facilities’ normal water supply.
The world has been so focused on COVID-19 that it seems summer, and wildfire season, snuck up on us. Responding to wildfires in the midst of a pandemic is another example of how important it is for health care personnel and communities to work together. Preparing and thinking outside the box when it comes to wildfires while dealing with a community spread pandemic helps improve our response.
This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.
At last month’s Disaster Planning for California Hospitals conference in Pasadena, a panel of hospital executives whose hospitals had been affected by recent fires and mudslides shared their experiences, reinforced the importance of preparedness, and offered first-hand insight. The video below captures some of their struggles and discoveries both during and after major natural disasters.
The Park Fire — now California’s fourth-largest wildfire — started on July 24 and has consumed more than 425,000 acres in Tehama and Butte counties. Fortunately, there have been no injuries or deaths attributed to the blaze.
This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.
Earlier this week, Hurricane Hilary — by then a tropical storm — struck Southern California, bringing record rainfall and widespread flooding from San Diego to Los Angeles and beyond. California hasn’t seen a tropical storm in 26 years, according to The Weather Channel.