Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/874010
emergency preparedness plan. You also need to take a scenario-based approach to your emergency drills. Talk through and test each high-risk scenario with your staff in order to identify the key people who'll lead your response efforts and who'll plan and organize communication among the entire team. Answer questions your staff has about each scenario. Demonstrate the required responses during live drills, so you can identify and work through elements that work on paper, but that prove ineffective dur- ing a real-life response. Every member of your staff should understand the entire response plan, and grasp their specific roles during various emergency situa- tions. Use disaster drills and tabletop discussions to test and evaluate your facility's emergency preparedness plan on an annual basis and make improvements to the protocols as needed. Organize the paperwork. The entire preparedness plan must be organized, tabbed and referenced, so it can be reviewed easily and quickly. Medicare surveyors will check that you have documents on hand that support your facility's emergency response systems. For example, you need to have immediate access to manufacturers' guide- lines for your generator and emergency lighting systems. You must also have on file schematics that show your facility's design and lay- out, including where firewalls are located. Contact local authorities. You must present your emergency response protocols to local authorities and offer your facility's resources to help out during a community-wide emergency. The prac- tical way to meet this requirement is to send a certified letter — so you have receipt of the communication attempt — and a brief 3 4 Safety S 3 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7