2004 OPEN FORUM Abstracts
RESPIRATORY CARE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS IMPROVEMENT PLAN.
John
Newhart RCP, Richard M Ford RRT FAARC UCSD Medical Center, San
Diego CA.
Overview: Respiratory Care Departments are
mandated to have a current disaster plan. At our medical center, the
plan was due for review and revision. In addition, it was a concern
that staff were not familiar with many aspects of the current plan.
We formed a special team to evaluate mechanisms to improve staff
awareness and understanding of disaster preparedness. Create new
systems and programs to improve response to disasters, including
education, policy changes and equipment and supply organization. To
evaluate the effectiveness of the new program, we elected to monitor
staff’s awareness of disaster preparedness before and after
specific initiatives were implemented
Methods:
A survey questionnaire was developed that included 20 questions
related to important aspects of disaster preparedness. The survey was
distributed prior to initiatives and repeated 30 days after several
programs were implemented. The programs implemented included revision
and distribution of a refined policy, development in collaboration
with staff of a call-back list requiring all staff to understand
their role regarding being called in to work, several sessions were
conducted to better educate staff, including formal inservices and
role playing in which staff took on responsibility for managing a
specific aspect of disaster response.
Results:
40 respiratory care personnel returned surveys for a response rate of
38%. The mean score on the survey prior to the initiatives indicated
an awareness score of 74%. The re-survey indicated an awareness score
of 91%. Compared to the earlier test, staffs understanding of
disaster response improved from 74% to 91%.
Discussion:
The efforts to improve staff awareness and the new policy systems
created by the Disaster Preparedness Team were effective in improving
the knowledge staff has about their important role in implementing
initiatives. A simple survey instrument can be beneficial to quantify
staff’s level of understanding.