You cannot foresee disasters and the least you can do is to stay prepared. When disasters fall, they hit hard, and they do not exclude the health centers. Whether it is a storm, flood, freezes, droughts, or wildfires, such problems are bound to affect the health organizations.
Regardless of the hospital’s location, it is recommendable for all health centers to be prepared for disasters at all time, but how can they do so?
Training the employees
The first and most crucial step towards disaster preparedness is ensuring that the workers are well trained and educated on how to handle disasters. Emergency evacuation plans are a way to make sure your employees know what to do in the event of a disaster.They should be versed with the necessary knowledge on what to do and what to avoid in cases of disasters and unexpected events like fire, storm, floods, and even the small issues like power outages. Regardless of how much equipment and technology a hospital invests in, without a knowledgeable team to handle them and make them useful when needed, everything is bound to fail.
Shift to electronic documentation
Hospitals and patients’ attendance should not stop just because of an emergency disaster. Business is supposed to go as usual. This means that the staff should be able to access everything they need for the job. Documents and reports should all be at a safe place to avoid losing patients information. Cases of emergency disasters such as flood or fire can result in damage or loss of paperwork, and they can be hard to track. Having electronic tools ensures that everything is safe and can still be accessed even when the offices are moved as you wait for the old ones to be restored.
Invest in portable mobile refrigerators
As said, medical care must go on regardless of the situations. Patients will still be in pain and will need to be diagnosed. Research experts will always have to do what they do best, and with BioFridge portable medical refrigerators, medical centers such as hospitals, clinics, researchers and labs will be in a position to carry out their business as usual in a case of an emergency disaster such as power outage, storm, or floods. The refrigerators can be used to store blood components such as platelets, plasma, and red blood cells. They make it possible to transport such components safely and ensuring that they can still be used on patients.
Telehealth
With technological advancement comes new and better ways of doing things. The medical center has not been left behind, and today, there are new ways for doctors to communicate with their patients and offer them medical attention without the need for a face to face meeting. This can significantly help in cases of disasters, especially if the hospital becomes inhabitable. If patients are unable to reach the hospital, they can still get medical attention through telehealth. It is easy, and all hospitals need is to invest in the necessary technological infrastructure that can handle disastrous situations.
It is all about staying organized and ensuring that there is a plan B in whichever case. These four tips will help hospitals to stay ready for whatever hits them and avoid further problems that could result from emergency disasters.
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