diaster drill. PLEASE help!

[supervisorhatchet]

Hey everyone. I am new to position of staff development and am responsible for filling in the gaps in education with my staff.

next week we are having a disaster drill. Here is my problem, I am NEW to position and I don't think this facility has had an in service in 2 or 3 years. (Seriously) So, I am prepared for it to go totally horrible.

My question is what things do I need to assess for, as far as employee education needs.

Here is our scenario. H20 tank in kitchen explodes. There will be injuries, deaths and evacuations.

Oh this is a long term care nursing facility.

And also, if anyone knows of any good resources for teaching please let me know. I am so new to position and have had no "staff development" myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

Go to this website, http://www.heics.com/HEICS98b.pdf and look at the PDF. This not only shows you how, it has a "train the trainer" component to show you how to train people in HEICS (Hospital Emergency Incident Command System). Obviously you're not a hospital, but I would think that the majority of the stuff would apply -- you wouldn't be taking casualties, hopefully, from the surrounding community, but if you had a tornado/earthquake, etc., people might well show up on your door with injuries. Something to think about.

This site, http://www.fhca.org/emerprep/actionsheet.pdf, is HEICS for nursing homes. You may find something like this for your own state.

I used to do disaster recovery, and I will share one horribly sad truth with you. In an evacuation emergency (fire, explosion, etc.,) people want to leave the building via the door they came in thru. Don't know why, but they do. When I did DR, I moved heaven and earth to try to keep any potential danger source (power rooms, equipment rooms, kitchens, lab equipment with explosive elements) well away from doorways most frequently used by employees or the public. You can hang 12 foot "EXIT THIS WAY" signs up, and people want to leave the way they normally do because they subconsciously think it's safe.

And don't forget to plan for family/visitors. You can have everything running like a top, and it only takes one person screaming, "OMG, we're all going to die!" to start a panic. Give the families something to do (take mom's flowers to the car and STAY THERE) to keep them from running back in to find their family member.