Preparing healthcare facilities for a disaster

Preparing a hospital for a natural disaster includes maintaining continuity of patient care, according to an article on the HCPro website.

For instance, when developing an emergency plan, it’s important to consider all the hospital’s systems and endpoints that people use and how those systems are integrated. 

Federal regulations require that hospitals’ emergency preparedness programs include systems to track the location of on-duty staff and sheltered patients in the hospital’s care during an emergency. 

Plus, to ensure that hospital staff are prepared to function in these high-stress situations, CMS requires facilities to demonstrate completion of two emergency exercises per rolling 12-month interval. 

Read the article.