Mass patient Incidence

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I'm working on my seminar for class, and it is about disaster preparedness for nursing. The one question asks about mass patient incidence and what it is. I've looked online and through all my text books. I think it means more patients then the healthcare team is able to handle. However, I'm still not clear. If anyone could respond. I would appreciate it.

Specializes in NICU, Peds.

Any incidence which leads to a mass of patients.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

The ethical dilemma would come in if you had two patients, both of which had survivable injuries with immediate surgery, but one might take 8 hours and 2 surgeons (16 surgeon hours) vs. one who would take 1 surgeon and 3 hours (3 surgeon hours). Do you save the 16 hour at the expense of the 3 hour and who ever else might need an immediate surgical intervention, or do you "black tag" the 16 hour case to save the most people?

What if the 16 hour case is a world renowned artist, diplomat, scientist, or doctor? What if he's a skid row drug addict? Should those things come into play, or should you just go on the medical condition? What if the person who would take the 3 hour surgery is a terrorist who caused the mass casualty, and the 16 hour surgery is a firefighter who was responding to the scene? Should a facility make an effort to strip away anything that could sway a medical opinion into an emotional one?

I've always thought that would be the hardest -- if you knew, KNEW, that they could all survive on an ordinary day, but you have to decide who dies to save the ones left. But on a bad, bad day, somebody's got to do it, and somehow live with the memories of those who pleaded for help for themselves or their family and were turned away.

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What happened to the days of doing your own homework assignments? Research your subject matter- you have more avail to you today then we did 35 yr ago We had to go to a place called THE Library" No they didn't serve umbrella drinks.

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Went thru Katrina so had crash course in disasters LOL Since it was a hurricane and had several days warning, many patients were dcd from the hospital so they could leave with family members and also to have rooms available in case of increased adm post hurricane. I believe other hospitals throughout the city did the same.

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On 9/11 my facility was expecting mass casualties. We cancelled all scheduled cases, discharged every patient possible, called in all available staff, and closed the ED to anything but level 1 trauma. In the end, nobody came...

I'm so sorry :hug:

I remember watching that day and seeing the ambulances all lined up to go get patients. Nobody was needed to go. If they hadn't gotten there within the first "few" minutes, it was too late. :(

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I'm so sorry :hug:

I remember watching that day and seeing the ambulances all lined up to go get patients. Nobody was needed to go. If they hadn't gotten there within the first "few" minutes, it was too late. :(

I too sat at a meeting table with our disaster preparednes plan expecting the mass influx of "The walking wounded" to be brought to a local Air force base (all air craft were grounded) as we watched the second tower fall.......I remember telling everyone that there will be no "walking wounded" because anyone who could walk today...went home.:crying2: That was a really long su#*y day....:(

To the OP.... google disaster preparedness

http://tinyurl.com/33jw4ta

and disaster preparedness hospitals

http://tinyurl.com/3k9vph6

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
The ethical dilemma would come in if you had two patients, both of which had survivable injuries with immediate surgery, but one might take 8 hours and 2 surgeons (16 surgeon hours) vs. one who would take 1 surgeon and 3 hours (3 surgeon hours). Do you save the 16 hour at the expense of the 3 hour and who ever else might need an immediate surgical intervention, or do you "black tag" the 16 hour case to save the most people?

What if the 16 hour case is a world renowned artist, diplomat, scientist, or doctor? What if he's a skid row drug addict? Should those things come into play, or should you just go on the medical condition? What if the person who would take the 3 hour surgery is a terrorist who caused the mass casualty, and the 16 hour surgery is a firefighter who was responding to the scene? Should a facility make an effort to strip away anything that could sway a medical opinion into an emotional one?

I've always thought that would be the hardest -- if you knew, KNEW, that they could all survive on an ordinary day, but you have to decide who dies to save the ones left. But on a bad, bad day, somebody's got to do it, and somehow live with the memories of those who pleaded for help for themselves or their family and were turned away.

Tagging the least survivable.....Do you save one very critical that even IF they survive will they be NO more that a vegetable versus saving three that will survive with possibly some disability?

I would, and have, utilized resources by saving more people than using up resources saving only one. IF you have to make these decisions, You deal with it by always being true to your heart, working hard to do your very best, asking yourself that when you die and go to heaven.....What would God say to you? "Good Job"? or "Maybe you should have..." and can I answer Him with a clear heart. You have faith and you pray.....Just my :twocents:

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

try CDC.gov and look under emergency preparedness. Joint Commission website has info, but I find their website to be hard to navigate.

This training came after Hurricane Katrina. Think about the obstacles and patients those nurses had. No water, food or meds available.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
try CDC.gov and look under emergency preparedness. Joint Commission website has info, but I find their website to be hard to navigate.

This training came after Hurricane Katrina. Think about the obstacles and patients those nurses had. No water, food or meds available.

I hope we learned something after Katrina and those patients should have been moved outside of New Orleans. Hospitals repetatively try to keep "business as usual" in the face of massive hurricanes endangering staff and patients unnecesarily......even though evacuation can be a separate nightmare in and of itself.

I Think about Joplin MS after the tornado this year. What a horror show that must have been! :uhoh3:

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

Having worked in disaster recovery before I became a nurse, I hate to say it, but people have a very short "disaster memory." For the first hurricane, the first hurricane season after a big one, the first fire after a disastrous fire season, people prepare, react, etc. Then, nothing happens for a while. People start saying, "well, we can't really budget for that," they do just in time inventory (which I call "run out of everything at the same time" inventory). You'd think after a Hugo or Andrew or Katrina that nobody'd rebuild in an area that's so likely to get hit again, or they'd make the building codes so tough that new construction could survive. But look what happened. Construction and building companies complained that stronger building codes would make home too expensive for anyone to be able to buy, so they were softened. The original post 9/11 recommendations were that any backup site be at least 150 miles away from the primary; well, people said that was too far, so it was scaled back (DOD ops, banks, etc.).

The one truth of human history is that people don't learn from history, and endlessly repeat it.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

Had one a few months back. Nursing home on fire.

Think Triage. Greatest good for greatest number of patients.

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