Rapid disposition, emergency department flow and best practices in hospital mass casualty incident response
Abstract
This paper examines how Stanford Hospital, a Level I trauma centre serving the metropolitan region of California’s Bay Area, manages an acute surge of patients from a mass casualty incident, specifically within the context of the crowded and overburdened US emergency medicine system. The authors offer practical considerations for the rapid creation of space and bandwidth during an acute surge of injured patients as well as best practices for reorganising daily systems to care for those patients efficiently. The study also discusses how past mass casualty incidents were examined for lessons learned in order to build and refine the response plan at Stanford Hospital, with input from a multidisciplinary committee.
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Author's Biography
Laura Harwood Jackson is a senior manager in the Office of Emergency Management for Stanford Health Care and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. Prior to joining Stanford, Laura worked for the Boston Public Health Commission’s Office of Public Health Preparedness. She earned a master of science in healthcare emergency management from Boston University School of Medicine in 2010 after discovering disaster-focused emergency medicine while working as an emergency medical technician. Laura has a passion for coordinating multidisciplinary workgroups to develop complex hazard-specific plans and teaching disaster response to healthcare professionals.
M. Meredith Masters is the Marc and Laura Andreessen Medical Director for Disaster Relief at the Stanford University School of Medicine and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Prior to joining Stanford, she was the Medical Director for University Hospital EMS in Newark, NJ, and was part of the Emergency Medicine Faculty at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Dr Masters’ clinical and research interests focus on disaster preparedness and response, improving education in disaster medicine, and the ethical and equitable delivery of care during crises. Dr Masters attended medical school at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and trained with the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin. Following residency, she completed the Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medicine Fellowship with the Fire Department of New York.
Citation
Jackson, Laura Harwood and Masters, M. Meredith (2024, December 1). Rapid disposition, emergency department flow and best practices in hospital mass casualty incident response. In the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 18, Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.69554/XQOQ4525.
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