Quality of Care Report - Ballarat Health Services

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Ballarat HealthServices MassCasualty TraumaExerciseIn the event of human influenceddisasters such as the London andMadrid Bombings, incidents such asthe Kerang or Trawalla Train crashes ornatural disasters such as HurricaneKatrina or the Ash Wednesdaybushfires the community has anexpectation that hospitals will be ableto deal with the large numbers ofinjuries that would result. This type ofmass casualty incident is known withinhospitals as a Code Brown andrepresents a significant alteration in thenormal operations of an impactedhospital.Planning for these events representunique challenges in the setting oflimited budgets and increasing patientthroughputs. Undertaking masscasualty Incident plans, procedures andprocesses is made even more difficultas simulating a large number of“casualties” cannot be achievedwithout closing down vital facilities,removing staff from areas such as theEmergency Department, OperatingSuite and Critical Care Unit and even ifthat could be achieved the cost toconduct this type of “real” exercise isprohibitive.Despite this exercising remains a criticalendeavor, capable of validating plans,procedures and equipment as well ashighlighting areas for improvement.DHS recently introduced theEmergoTrain System (ETS), a real time,real resources, disaster simulation toolthat uses magnets known as “Gubas”to represent staff, casualties andresources. ETS has been internationallyaccepted in Sweden, UK, Netherlands,Germany and Japan and by the WorldHealth Organisation. Using ETS allowsboth pre hospital and hospitalorganisations to simulate a masscasualty incident without impacting onnormal operations and at a minimalcost.Exercise Glass House: August 2008For Exercise Glasshouse the participantsranging from Ambulance Victoriaparamedics to hospital staff and up todivisional level EmergencyManagement staff had to respond to aincident where a truck carryingexplosives rolled over and crashed intothe State Government offices on MairSt resulting in a significant explosion.The resultant impact affected over 130“Gubas”. A total of 95 were taken toBallarat Base Hospital Emergencydepartment, including 22 selfpresenters and 20 were seen by StJohn of God Hospital (Ballarat) ED staffwho formed part of the exercise. Afurther 13 were transported to variousMelbourne hospitals. A total of 24succumbed to their injuries at thescene.The event involving 130 BHS staff andexternal emergency services personnelwas hailed by the exercise coordinatorsfrom the Department of HumanServices and by observers as one of thebest run simulations ever.This exercise was unique in Victorianhealth in that it brought Ballarat HealthServices together with agencies such asCFA, Victorian Police, AmbulanceVictoria, SES and the MunicipalEmergency Coordination Centre. In thepast this type of exercise has onlyinvolved the health service andAmbulance service. However thisexercise showed that not only couldmultiple agencies be involved but thatthe notion of an “all agenciesapproach” to disaster managementcan be achieved successfully. As aconsequence of this exercise BHS isbeing held up as an example to otherVictorian Health Services in how tointegrate disaster responses acrossmultiple agencies.Don Garlick, Emergency ManagementCoordinator, said the Emergo TrainSystem was an educational tool fortraining and testing preparedness formajor accidents and disasters, usingthe principle of ‘learning by doing’.The exercise was conducted as thoughit was a normal day at Ballarat HealthServices where the organisation wasclose to 100 per cent capacity. “Theexercise is designed to put emergencyservices under pressure. It was basedon real time and real resources.” Donsaid. “So, for example, if a patientneeds to be transported to Melbourneby road ambulance that ambulance cannot be put back into use until thethree-hour turn around time iscompleted.” One of the most pleasingaspects of the exercise was theleadership demonstrated by the BHSHealth Service Incident ManagementTeam. “There were particular positivereferences by outside agencies andstaff well experienced in emergencymanagement to the way that the BHSIncident Management Team conductedthe response.”There was some great work carried outby all those involved and it allowedstaff to deal with all variables that mayoccur in a major incident or disaster.BHS will not rest on its laurels howeverwith close examination of the exercise,feedback and evaluation to becollected and collated with a report tobe generated on any improvementsthat can be implemented.41Ballarat Health Services Quality of Care Report 2007-08
Clean Hospital - Clean Departments - Clean RoomsQuality of Care Report 2007-08 43
Page 3: Welcome to the Ballarat HealthServi
Page 6 and 7: BHS theatre nurses Lauren Atkinson
Page 8 and 9: Community AdvisoryCommitteeImprovin
Page 10 and 11: Promoting theBenefits of aMulticult
Page 12 and 13: Your Experience Patient StoryJohn G
Page 14 and 15: What Happens if youhave a Complaint
Page 16 and 17: Mental Health Clinician Leanne Scot
Page 18 and 19: Victoria provides modern andsophist
Page 20 and 21: Psychiatric ServicesThe Future Work
Page 22 and 23: Waiting for surgeryBallarat Health
Page 24 and 25: Oncology ServicesFour years ago whe
Page 26 and 27: suitability for transplantation, or
Page 28 and 29: “I never expected to make this de
Page 30 and 31: Governance and RiskManagementPuttin
Page 32 and 33: Committed to SafetyBHS is committed
Page 34 and 35: Achievements• The use of alcohol/
Page 36 and 37: Dr Luke Mitchell and Michelle Hamro
Page 38 and 39: “Having to travel to Ballarat for
Page 40 and 41: Our Staff andVolunteersHow can you
Page 45 and 46: Tell us what you think….We invite

Quality of Care Report - Ballarat Health Services

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?