OMMC Surgery Disaster Preparedness Plan

2003 / 2006

Definition of disaster:

Disaster is any event that overwhelms the person or a group of persons facing it. The overwhelming can be in terms of psychosocial impact, destruction of property, injuries to or diseases of human beings, and scarcity of resources.

Any event that is of a magnitude that overwhelms the administration of the hospital (or the department) is a disaster in the hospital (or the department).

Types of disaster:

External disasters (outside the hospital)

Internal disasters (inside the hospital)

Disaster of concern to Department of Surgery

Overwhelming and sudden influx of patients with physical injuries at the Surgery ER (patients with blast, burn, blunt, and penetrating injuries)

Goal of disaster control:

Save as many victims and as much properties as possible

Steps in Disaster Preparedness and Control:

Steps	Primary Details	Other Details
Declaration of disaster with establishment of Incident Command	By Surgery Team Captain	Incident Commander: Surgery Team Captain / Surgery Disaster Control Director
Notification	Surgery Disaster Control Director
	Senior House Officer
	Hospital Disaster Preparedness Committee
	Chief of Clinics
	Hospital Director
	Surgery Asst. Chair for Service
	Surgery Department Chair
Mobilization of staff and services	Surgery staff Disaster Response Teams and Alert Codes Surgical services Operating room Surgical wards	Team I surgical residents and interns Team II surgical residents and interns Team III surgical residents and interns Code Red or Red Alert – all teams are physically present in the hospital Code Yellow or Yellow Alert – two teams are physically present in the hospital Code Green or Green Alert – all teams are on call Surgical consultants are called in as necessary.
	Other medical and paramedical staff of the hospitals (as needed)	Through the Senior House Officer / Chief of Clinics / Hospital Director
	Support and ancillary services Nursing Service Pharmacy Laboratory Radiology Etc.	Through the Nursing Director / Hospital Director
Organization of staff and services	Incident Command	- Commander in Chief - Messenger – calls (internal and external) - Runner
	Triage Officer	2^nd year surgical resident
	Holding andTreatment Areas Teams	Area supervisors Treatment teams
	Transport of Victims	Transport teams
	Traffic Control	Security Force
	Patients’ Log	Information personnel
	Relatives Information Area	Information personnel
	Press Conference	Hospital Director / Department Chair (designated representative)
Control of disaster	Triage	Color Tagging – use ribbons and permanent marker-pens Red – for critical care patients or classified as priority one Yellow – for acute care patients or classified as priority two Green – for primary care patients or classified as priority three Black – for non-salvageable patients Designation of holding and treatment areas
	Treatment	OR, Surgery wards, and other areas in hospital
	Referrals	PGH, Pasay City General Hospital, Manila Hospitals
	Patients’ log	Name, age, sex, diagnosis, color tag, whereabouts
	Traffic control	Control of crowd, relatives, press people, and even hospital staff
	Relatives Information Area	Outside ER – Hospital lobby or Parking Lot
	Press Conference	Outside ER
Decongestion and reconstruction	Decongestion and reconstruction of Surgery ER	By Department of Surgery
Post-disaster evaluation and reporting	Surgery Disaster Control Director / Incident commander Department of Surgery Disaster Preparedness Committee	Continual improvement of disaster preparedness program and plan

See OMMC Surgery Disaster Preparedness Manual or http://xdisasteromsurg.tripod.com for details.