The importance of hospital preparedness for mass casualty incidents and public health emergencies was discussed in a webinar hosted by Maria Romano, clinical product consultant at TeleTracking, according to a TeleTracking blog post.
The webinar focused on how the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora dealt with the sudden increase in patient volume as a result of the mass shooting incident at the Century Movie Theater in Aurora in July 2012.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center is a level II trauma center, and before the shooting even started, the medical center had patients in 49 of their 50 emergency rooms beds and another 11 in the waiting room.
Here are four actions taken by the hospital staff as the wounded started to arrive from the theater:
1. Non-trauma patients were moved out of the emergency room to pre-op and recovery rooms.
2. Safety officers and other non-healthcare personnel moved the wounded from squad cars to the emergency room beds.
3. Each trauma room received four patients instead of two, and those who were less seriously injured were treated in the hallways.
4. The intensive care unit made room for the seriously injured by transferring the less injured from the unit to beds on regular medical floors.
Since then, the medical center has hosted monthly "table top" discussions for their hospital as well as others in the area to discuss disaster and mass casualty preparedness, according to the blog post.
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The webinar focused on how the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora dealt with the sudden increase in patient volume as a result of the mass shooting incident at the Century Movie Theater in Aurora in July 2012.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center is a level II trauma center, and before the shooting even started, the medical center had patients in 49 of their 50 emergency rooms beds and another 11 in the waiting room.
Here are four actions taken by the hospital staff as the wounded started to arrive from the theater:
1. Non-trauma patients were moved out of the emergency room to pre-op and recovery rooms.
2. Safety officers and other non-healthcare personnel moved the wounded from squad cars to the emergency room beds.
3. Each trauma room received four patients instead of two, and those who were less seriously injured were treated in the hallways.
4. The intensive care unit made room for the seriously injured by transferring the less injured from the unit to beds on regular medical floors.
Since then, the medical center has hosted monthly "table top" discussions for their hospital as well as others in the area to discuss disaster and mass casualty preparedness, according to the blog post.
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