A software-based tool designed to help hospitals evaluate their level of preparedness for mass casualty incidents
Mass casualty incidents have happened throughout the country in places as large as Boston, MA and as small as Newtown, CT. Hospitals need to be ready to respond with rapid treatment, effective triage, and coordinated communications to help them respond effectively when every second counts.
The Hospital Surge Evaluation Tool is a user-friendly peer assessment tool that was designed to identify gaps in a hospital’s preparedness and help assess its ability to respond to a mass casualty event. The tool takes the form of an essentially no-notice drill, and incorporates the real-life considerations of healthcare delivery in acute care settings.
The tool is intended for use by hospital emergency managers, hospital administrators, and clinical staff to assess and improve their hospital’s surge plans. It is not intended for use as an accountability tool. Hospitals need to exercise their preparedness for a mass casualty incident regularly. This tool can help hospital emergency managers to make recurring tabletop exercises a reality by providing a fully developed tabletop exercise that can be used at their facilities. In some respects this tool can be thought of as “Surge Evaluation in a Box”.
