In healthcare, leaders are faced with emergency situations. Healthcare leaders will have to protect staff and patients. During emergency situations, hospitals and other healthcare organizations must have an emergency operations plan. For an emergency operations plan, determining a team leader, developing a command center, and training you staff to be ready for an emergency is essential. The most important part of an emergency operations plan is determining a team leader. This person will direct and communicate with the staff and command center. This individual will direct staff and communicate statistics on how many beds are open, ER capacity, OR capacity, and other information regarding the healthcare organization. It Is very important the healthcare organization or hospital has a command center. This command center communicates with the community and emergency personnel, such as police, fire, emergency transport services, and others who are on the scene so the hospital can get accurate information and start preparing for chaos. Leaders can also listen to social media, the news, the radio, or other forms of communication to get accurate information. To manage this emergency and decrease the disruption, I would first train the staff to test the emergency operations plan and to ensure they know how to respond in an emergency and what their specific responsibilities are (CREATING AN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST FOR HOSPITALS OR HEALTHCARE FACILITIES, 2019). When the plan is implemented, I would increase communication with staff and patients to build trust, feel safe, and understanding of what is happening at all times.
References:
CREATING AN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST FOR HOSPITALS OR HEALTHCARE FACILITIES. Medcom, Inc. (2019, December 21). https://www.medcominc.com/disaster-preparedness/emergency-preparedness-checklist-healthcare-facilities/.