Hospital Corner: Emergency preparedness at Logan Health – Whitefish
The massive impact of the wildfires in Los Angeles prompts the question: how prepared are we? Whether it is a wildfire, or another threat to public safety or health, it is essential to have plans in place. Rest assured, plans exist, and at Logan Health – Whitefish in cooperation with Logan Health Medical Center, the Flathead County Office of Emergency Services and other agencies, emergency preparedness is an ongoing practice.
“With emergency preparedness, the three P’s are key: planning, preparing and practicing,” said Nancy Henriksson, executive director of quality & operations at Logan Health – Whitefish. “The hospital has an emergency operating plan and policies with procedures to guide staff in an emergency situation to minimize the impact patient, visitor and staff safety and on hospital operations.”
Henriksson heads the hospital’s Emergency Preparedness Committee. The committee is made up of department leaders, security and staff from the quality and communications departments. Meetings are also led by the Logan Health’s emergency preparedness program manager, who acts as the liaison between Logan Health – Whitefish and Logan Health Medical Center and with Flathead County’s emergency response agencies. Whitefish’s committee meets monthly to review policies and procedures and plan trainings.
“We discuss and plan for situations inside the hospital, as well as situations in and around our community that will impact us,” said Henriksson. “As we practice these plans, we identify areas where we can improve and update procedures.”
An all-hazards approach is used to coordinate incident mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery for the hospital and all its facilities. The hospital committee conducts an annual Hazard Vulnerability Analysis or HVA, which identifies the possible threats and ranks them according to what is most likely to occur. The HVA drives the type of trainings used to practice response and coordination of emergencies.
Also on an annual basis, the hospital is required by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to conduct three annual testing exercises. These include practical mock exercises where volunteers will physically act out a scenario. Others are tabletop exercises where participants discuss what they would do in such an emergency.
In these trainings, the Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) is set up, just as it would be in an actual emergency. A HICS is a standardized framework that helps hospitals respond to incidents. It's based on the Incident Command System (ICS), which is a standardized approach to managing incidents on-site
Last September, a full-scale mock exercise simulated a monster truck crash into the grandstands at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. The exercise was designed to evaluate the capabilities and response of local emergency responders and the staff at Logan Health’s Emergency Departments in Kalispell and Whitefish.
Recent tabletop exercises in Whitefish included discussing a measles outbreak and a scenario of a train derailment causing an explosion at a public event. Additionally, the hospital conducts fire drills, active shooter drills, hazardous material spills and child abduction drills.
The hospital’s readiness has been tested in real events, such as power outages, phone outages, the water boil alert on Big Mountain that impacted the walk-in clinic at the Base Lodge and the nationwide shortage of IV fluids after hurricane Helene caused flooding at Baxter International facility in North Carolina.
“I’m continuously impressed with our teams and their readiness in both drills and actual emergency incidents. We will continue to improve our skills,” said Henriksson.