Planning for Disaster: Are We Really Prepared?

We have been involved in discussions at national meetings regarding burn disaster preparedness. We support the viewpoint that with a major disaster, large numbers of burn victims will need to be spread among a number of burn centers rather than transferring burn care specialists to one facility. The maximum capability of our unit is approximately 20 patients, but varies depending on patient severity. If a major incident takes place that overwhelms our facility, transfers to other burn units will be necessary. As part of our disaster preparedness, we felt that it was important to test this process of patient transfer during a hospital disaster drill. In November 2004, our facility conducted a full-scale emergency preparedness exercise involving an influx of 20 burn victims. As the scenario unfolded, it was evident that the number of victims would exceed the burn care capacity of our facility. In addition, patients with minor burns remained at the scene to be triaged and other area hospitals received burn victims that needed evaluation as to the need for definitive burn care. Phone triage of victims either at the scene or at outlying hospitals was performed by the associate director of the burn center. As part of this drill, the nurse manager of the burn center utilized the ABA's web based Directory of Resources and called 11 regional Burn Centers. These calls identified the disaster drill and requested information regarding bed availability.