Tip of the week: Update your emergency staffing plan to ensure adequate rest time

During disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, and tornados, your staff may be so pumped up on adrenaline that it forgets one of the basic elements of an efficient operation: adequate rest. After Hurricane Rita ripped through Louisiana in 2005, Christus St. Patrick Hospital in Lake Charles amended its disaster plan and put a three-shift system into place. When a hurricane is imminent, staff members who decide to ride out the storm are divided into three teams:

• Team A prepares the hospital for the impending hurricane and arranges for patients to be transferred to other facilities if necessary.
• Team B relieves Team A and stays at the hospital during the hurricane. Team A goes home to rest.
• Team C relieves Team B and gets the hospital ready to reopen. Team B goes home to rest.

“We didn’t do that with Rita, and we wore out a lot of people because they stayed for the whole duration,” says Linda Van Winkle, CPMSM, CPCS, manager of medical staff services at Christus St. Patrick.

This week’s tip is an excerpt from “Emergency preparedness: Disaster veterans share experiences and lessons learned,” which appeared in the July issue of Medical Staff Briefing, archived online at www.hcpro.com.