As many of you may know, on Sunday, October 1, the deadliest mass shooting massacre in the U.S. took place at a country concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. 59 people were killed, and 527 were injured. After killing that many people, the gunman then killed himself. As of right now there is no ulterior motive to the actions of the shooter. This current event inspired me to think of the question 'How does a hospital manage a mass shooting?'. On the CNBC website, I read about how the Las Vegas hospitals are dealing with this crisis. "Nevada has just one Level-1 trauma center in the state, University Medical Center in Las Vegas" (How Las Vegas hospitals prepared for a massacre-CNBS). I can only imagine how packed this hospital must have been when the shooting first occurred, and even now. It says that officials have asked many people to donate their blood to patients in need, probably because of how busy the hospitals are. "As the numbers go by, the umbers continue to increase," said Clark Country Sheriff Joseph Lombardo. Since 9/11, these hospitals in Nevada, as well as over the world probably, are increasing their "hospital preparedness" to allow them to be ready for situations as horrible as this one. In July, this Level-1 trauma center hospital held a training session involving the first responders from around the area. This seems extremely beneficial and almost strange timing in the sense of preparedness for the shooting. It is definitely a good tactic for hospitals to have in order to be ready for any tragedy that could take place.
One of the specific methods the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada used during the events of the massacre were "to prioritize patients, first responders and hospital staff use triage, evaluating who needs emergency treatment immediately, who can wait a bit longer, and who can wait beyond that" (CNBC article listed above). The article also noted that the "triage at mass shooting incidents can be complicated by the ongoing threat and mechanism of injury". I can see how using the triage method could raise anger to patients and their families because everybody wants to be healthy fast. I believe it is the most fair, and efficient method in a time like this one. Overall, I have learned that these tragic events do happen, and it is good that this Nevada hospital was prepared at best they could be. All hospitals should be ready for anything that comes their way because you never know what can happen.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/las-vegas-hospitals-dealing-with-hundreds-of-mass-shooting-victims.html
Nice review of the events and I like how you're considering the impacts of events on your profession. The readiness training exercises are of the utmost importance in any organization!
ReplyDeleteOn 9/11 Morgan Stanley only had a single fatality despite having thousands of employees in the twin towers. Just weeks before attack, the security director, Rick Rescorla insisted that they conduct a full evacuation rehersal where staff had to practice going down the 90 or so flights of stairs to egress the buildings. Imagine the push back he got as a leader and the whining. But in the end, his actions helped save many lives.
As a leader will be forced with making unpopular decisions like running triage, or doing full scale disaster response exercises. They are expensive, seem wasteful, and are very unproductive when you think about all of the day to day things people have to get done... but a small investment of time and resources like a egress drill or disaster response exercise will pay off in spades when it actually does happen!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/10/28/a-tower-of-courage/c53e8244-3754-440f-84f8-51f841aff6c8/?utm_term=.fb171d6a20a7
ReplyDeleteHere's an article on Rescorla. I was incorrect above, they had 6 or 7 deaths. still remarkable considering they had thousands of employees in the towers.
Even at the best of times, the trauma system can be overwhelmed with relatively few casualties. In a masscal, triage is a necessity, and the decisions are between awful and truly terrible. We did a lot of this kind of training in the Army.
ReplyDeleteA great example happened this past weekend at the Army 10 miler... there were 262 patients with more than 30 who had heat stroke. The medical team faced a mass casualty event and it was simply a 10 mile fun run...
ReplyDeleteSuch a tragic event. This post reminds me of when the Boston Bombing occurred and there was an overflow of patients. I had a friend that was working as a nurse at Mass General that had to stay for about 24 hours straight to accommodate everyone that was injured. There are a lot of bad people in the world but thankfully there are plenty of good people that will do whatever they can to help people in those situations.
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