Southcoast employees get training

FALL RIVER – Forty Southcoast Hospitals Group employees have successfully completed the Healthcare Leadership & Administrative Decision Making Course provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes drills on terrorism and man-made and natural disasters.
The Southcoast team was trained in late March at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness, in a converted Army hospital in Anniston, Ala.
“Southcoast Hospitals conducts drills several times a year to make sure all of our staff have sufficient emergency preparedness training,” said Patrick Gannon, vice president of quality and safety for Southcoast, who attended the session. “The FEMA training adds a new dimension to our hospitals’ disaster planning and response.”
“The key,” he added, “is to understand the extreme stress a health care system can be under and have plans and procedures in place to respond quickly and effectively to keep the health care system running smoothly during the disaster situation.”
The Alabama facility is dedicated to training hospital and health care professionals in disaster preparedness and response. The four-day training included two days of lectures and tabletop drills and two days of functional exercises in a simulated hospital environment.
The scenarios included an infant abduction, mass causalities, a hazard chemical spill requiring decontamination of victims, a bomb threat, and a smallpox pandemic response.
“A benefit of this type of preparedness is the ability to work as a team in various incident management positions while using the National Incident Management System protocols,” said Ray Price, director of safety and security for Southcoast Hospitals, who also attended. “These protocols allow the team to work in concert with EMS, first responders and all state and federal agencies involved in the event.”
Southcoast had sent individual employees to the training center before, but this was the first time it sent a large group. The team included staff from the member hospitals’ emergency departments, radiology, public relations, Southcoast Home Care, support services, and more.
The Visiting Nurse Association of Southeastern Massachusetts in Fall River, part of Southcoast Health System, also participated, and Southcoast invited representatives from other Massachusetts hospitals and agencies, including Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, Nantucket Cottage Hospital in Nantucket, and Environmental Health & Engineering Inc. of Waltham. The training is paid for by the federal government.