by DJ Phalen: Bridging disaster and terrorist planning with healthcare
If you only make one major training event in 2012, I HIGHLY recommend making it the HALO Corporation’s 2012 Bicoastal Counter Terrorism Summit. I have attended this seminar multiple years now and can attest to the comprehensive nature of the courses and the top notch industry experts teaching each of the courses.
HALO’s Largest Bicoastal Counter-Terrorism Summit
(29 October - 2 November 2012 Paradise Point Resort San Diego, CA)
http://www.thehalocorp.com/2012-bicoastal-counter-terrorism-summit.html
Multiple Training Options
New Cybersecurity Courses
Live-Action Counter-Terrorism Scenarios
Defense Industry Vendor Exhibits
DOD Demonstrations
Federal, State, and Local Government Networking
Homeland Security Centric Academia
Humanitarian Aid / Disaster Response Organizations
Discounted Group Rates and Grants Available
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To Blog or Not to Blog - Why it Matters in Emergency Management
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Documenting Institutional KnowledgeWhether private security at an organization or law enforcement in a town, city, or county, the role of these professionals is essentially the same; provide the highest level of safety and security possible while protecting the dignity, rights, and freedom of those that you serve. In addition, “[h]ealthcare security departments derive their missions from the goals of the institutions that employ them” (Patterson, 2010, pg. 2-1). In healthcare organizations, it can be particularly difficult to balance these needs. Healthcare institutions often see people on the worst day of their lives. People are sick, scared, vulnerable and often defensive. Because of this, situations can quickly escalate disproportionately and then just as rapidly decompensate.
Hospitals are safe havens; places of refuge. They are often wide open for you to come in and seek needed care and attention. Once inside, you quite often have nearly complete access to roam the halls and inner sanctums of the institution. You may be sent from the emergency department (ED) to x-ray, or pharmacy, or any other number of departments. People looking for their sick or injured friends and family are often encountered wandering the corridors. However, it is not infrequent that so are rival gang members looking for their fallen friends; or worse, looking for their rivals. Sometimes it is a distraught family member—not unlike the recent Johns Hopkins Hospital shooting that left a doctor gravely wounded and the shooter, and his mother, dead. Possibly even more ominously, it is also becoming increasingly common around the world for terrorists to target hospitals; either as a secondary target or in an attempt to increase the death count from the primary attack. Attacks staged at ED’s world wide are numerous enough over the past few years that a simple Google search will provide dozens of cases—and these are only the most well known.
Despite the inherent dangers that a hospital may face, it simply cannot function in a lock down state. Access can only be marginally restricted—no hospital wants to face a lawsuit from the family of a patient who died because they could not gain access through Gestapo-esque security measures—yet healthcare workers need to feel safe enough, and themselves unencumbered enough, to perform their critical lifesaving tasks. It is a delicate balance between basic security procedures, environmental and design features, increased awareness, and ample training.
Starting at a facility level, hospitals can—and many do—adopt principles of Crime Prevention Though Environmental Design (CPTED). These principles create a safer environment by controlling variables that allow for criminal activity, such as changing the accessibility and desirability for criminal elements. Additionally, many institutions are increasing their use of access control systems, magnetometers, bullet proof glass, safe rooms, and other more overt security features. At the personnel level, facilities are much more commonly requiring background checks as a condition—and in some cases ongoing condition—or employment.
Despite the various potentials for dangerous interactions or criminal/terrorist events at a hospital, the security staff has the responsibility to provide high level security while maintaining, if not enhancing, the workplace atmosphere for the employees; enforcing the rules without impeding on their liberties. This is largely done through a mixture of active processes on the part of the security team. They must present themselves as professionals—especially in a historically conservative field of professionals—as well as take every opportunity to network, build relationships throughout the institution, and gain respect. Their mission is not unlike that of community policing; gain the trust of the community and they will work with you in a partnership for a common goal. It is imperative that the security force not only discusses their agendas, but takes the time to listen to the needs of the employees whom they serve. Building partnerships and relationships with individual units can lead to critical exchange of information that not only benefits both parties, but fosters a mutual respect for the role and function of the other party. The security force can use these partnerships as avenues for exchanging ideas, focusing training, and cultivating the most powerful security tool available; an engaged and well informed staff that understands, supports, and extends the presence and role of security throughout the institution.
By developing a mutually respectful relationship with each department of a hospital—while being sensitive of their particular needs—security can cultivate partnerships that promote the mission of all stakeholders. For security to be truly effective, it requires the respect and participation of the population that it serves. By enhancing training, highlighting the objectives of the security department—and how they are mutually beneficial as well as taking the time to explain why things might be handled in a particular way—security can ensure the completion of their mission while protecting the rights of those they serve.
Stay tuned for pt. 2...
As always, join the ongoing discussions at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
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Patterson, E. (Ed.). (2010). Basic training manual for healthcare security officers: fifth edition. Glendale Heights, IL: International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.
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It’s that time of the year again!!!
2011 Bicoastal Counter-Terrorism Summit - San Diego, CA: March 28th – April 1st, 2011
(These courses are approved for grant funding in certain regions. Contact your local grant administrator).
I have been speaking with Mr. Brad Barker (President at The HALO Corporation) again this year...and I am thoroughly impressed with the 2011 course lineup. Take a look for yourself and consider the timeliness/relevance of the topics/issues and the high caliber instructor/presenter line-up for this year's summit...if you are planning to make a conference this year…make this one. San Diego, CA: March 28th – April 1st, 2011
Click here to visit the Conference Page on The HALO Corporation’s Website
And make sure that you sign-up for The Harbinger; HALO’s free newsletter when you visit the site.
The HALO Corporation is a non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by former Special Operations, National Security, and Intelligence personnel. HALO exists to provide safety and security for those in need and to improve: force protection, all aspects of security, humanitarian aid, and disaster response.
As always, join the ongoing discussions at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
Also, join me at Linkedin and on Twitter (ClinicalEM)
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As we were heading into the New Year, I was looking for another great wealth of Hospital/Clinical EM topics to kick things off right. Well, as it happens, a peer and fellow alumni of mine has been very active (not to mention something of a SME) in one of the most pervasive issues in EM; comms. So, my intention was to hit him up with a Q&A, but he sent me a great piece right out of the gate. So, I am passing it along to you…a guest blog with Christopher Neuwirth, MA, EMT/FF.
Reconsider everything you think you know about amateur radios and how it applies to healthcare emergency management!
To begin, did you know:
• Amateur radios are the most sustainable, resilient, robust, and scalable forms of emergency telecommunications in existence today;
• Amateur radios provide the only means of complete interoperability during a catastrophic telecommunications failure;
• You can use an iPhone or Android smartphone as an amateur radio using no-cost, free software.
Healthcare emergency management is a relatively new discipline that is gaining tremendous recognition nationwide for several reasons. The most remarkable reason is that hospitals and other healthcare institutions are vulnerable, critical infrastructures that have been largely unaddressed by emergency management and homeland security agencies at all levels of government. As such, healthcare emergency managers must ensure they are adequately prepared to manage a crisis, emergency, or disaster in the event one should ever occur. This includes providing interoperable telecommunications that can be used to communicate with internal and external stakeholders, coordinate a response and recovery, and ensure continuity of operations for life safety.
Failures in interoperable communications are frequently identified in the after action reports of many disasters and a study in 2006 by Donahue and Tuohy clearly identifies this. The primary reason this occurs so often is because emergency services personnel rely heavily on public safety radios and a limited number of licensed frequencies to communicate. When a disaster results in a response from numerous agencies, it becomes a near impossibility to guarantee all personnel have access to the same frequencies. In addition, if that system fails, there is little redundancy to fall back on. Amateur radios, in contrast, are able to provide interoperability among all emergency services, healthcare facilities, and any stakeholder using low-cost amateur radio equipment (assuming users have obtained their amateur radio license). Keep in mind that when a hospital or healthcare facility experiences a significant emergency or disaster, it is essential that key personnel communicate with responding emergency services and neighboring/partner healthcare institutions. The most logical, economic, and failsafe way to accomplish this is by using amateur radios.
Amateur radio emergency communications can be integrated into healthcare emergency management in several ways -- but the following two are the most common: partnering with local amateur radio organizations or creating your own cadre of trained operators (i.e. New Jersey Public Health Amateur Radio Consortium or South Carolina HEART). Local radio clubs and organizations, such as the Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES), are willing, capable, and ready to assist any healthcare facility in an emergency or disaster. However, the best way to integrate amateur radio into healthcare emergency management is through training, educating, and licensing your own healthcare personnel. In a catastrophic telecommunications disasters, external amateur radio organizations may be taxed to assist countless other stakeholders, in addition to, hospitals. Creating and maintaining an internal group of trained and licensed amateur radio operators ensures that, when needed, they can participate in emergency communications with internal personnel (security, clinical staff), external emergency personnel (fire, police, EMS) or neighboring/partner healthcare institutions. The bottom line -- it makes more sense to train your own personnel who have a vested interest than expect external amateur radio operators to enter your facility and keep your best interests in mind during a disaster.
The two most successful initiatives nationwide to integrate and advance amateur radio emergency communications within healthcare exist in South Carolina and New Jersey. Over the past several years, the South Carolina Healthcare Emergency Amateur Radio Team (www.scheart.us) has developed a remarkably robust statewide amateur radio network for its hospitals and healthcare stakeholders. The success of the SCHEART project is largely due to the numerous partnerships that were created in both the private and public sectors -- this aspect alone cannot be emphasized enough -- partnerships are essential and imperative for the success of any healthcare emergency management activity. Most recently, the New Jersey Public Health Amateur Radio Consortium (www.njpharc.org), using the SCHEART project as a reference, has developed a similar, statewide initiative in New Jersey. This effort is focusing on training, educating, and licensing the complete healthcare continuum, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, emergency services, and public health departments. More so, the “Consortium” is integrating amateur radios with the latest in telecommunications technology to develop a remarkably resilient and sustainable emergency communications infrastructure.
The traditional perceptions of amateur radios and “hams” do not apply to the future of amateur radio emergency communications within healthcare -- we are redefining the concepts and integrating amateur radio emergency communications like never before. Keep in mind, however, that you must be licensed to operate an amateur radio. John F. Kennedy once said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” Make it your new year’s resolution to contact your local amateur radio organization, get licensed, and share your experience with your colleagues! Disasters happen. When they do, the world relies on amateur radio.
---
Chris is the President of the New Jersey Public Health Amateur Radio Consortium and has been involved with emergency services since 1999, including professional and volunteer experiences in emergency medical services, firefighting, and law enforcement. Chris is currently involved with orchestrating healthcare emergency management activities among hospitals, long-term care facilities, FQHC's, home care agencies, EMS, and public health departments.
Chris earned his Master of Arts degree in Emergency and Disaster Management from American Military University and has received specialized training from the Center for Domestic Preparedness, New Mexico Tech – Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, FEMA's Emergency Management Institute, the Los Angeles Police Department, New Jersey State Police and TEEX. He was recently selected into an emergency management fellowship program at the Emergency Management Academy that he will complete over the next year.
Thanks Chris for the great piece (and the invaluable information)…will have you back again!
As always, stay safe and stay connected. dp
Please join the discussion and think tanks on this subject (and many others) by joining my LinkedIn Group at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management and by following updates and relevant materials on Twitter at ClinicalEM.
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It's been a while since I have blogged...I have been swamped.
As I write this I am involved in a project with my institution (via multi-specialty emergency preparedness group) to formulate a patient surge capacity plan for our regional healthcare partners. As a pediatric trauma center, we are helping design a new framework (and hopefully a well oiled network) of adult hospitals with a newly developed arm for pediatric surge events. Beyond helping to develop a new subdivision in existing HICS (Hospital Incident Command System), which is critically important, we hope to launch a new set of training TTP, tools, JIT training materials, and a new Partnership through Pediatric Liaisons (extending our Disaster Response Team's (DRT) own policies, procedures, guiding principles, charter, etc). In addition, we will advise on necessary training, caches, and many other pediatric-centric concepts.
Please check back as I continue to update the progress of this Clinical Emergency Management undertaking.
As always, stay safe. dp
Please join the discussion and think tanks on this subject (and many others) by joining my LinkedIn Group at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management and by following updates and relevant materials on Twitter at ClinicalEM.
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Undoubtedly you have been following the events (and the complications) of the natural gas explosion in San Bruno last night and today (this is what we do & BTW thank you @TheFireTracker2 on Twitter for the great info feeds).
Lessons learned? Very fast surge of patients and capacity for burn victims needs to continually be planned/prepared for.
From the counter-terror/infrastructure protection aspect...how secure are the gas mains at your facility (or in the immediate area?)
Join the ongoing discussions:
at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
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Stay safe
dp
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There continues to be a significant trend around the world (as well as in the United States) of armed attacks and suicide/homicide bombers (link to my Twitter for posts of the constant barrage of attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Somalia, Russia, etc). In the United States for example, we just witnessed events at Discovery Channel HQ (guns and bombs). However, it has also been a busy week for Hospitals and Healthcare. There was the Army Hospital stormed by a hostage taking gunman (on Monday 9/6/10 - security changes made since Major Nidal Hassan?) as well as explosion of a homemade bomb in a senior living facility
This is not isolated phenomena...and this doesn't ONLY happen abroad.
Where are you at with your current facility (planning, training, drilling, state of readiness, security posture)?
Join the ongoing discussions:
at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
Also, join me at Linkedin and on Twitter ( ClinicalEM )
As always, stay safe. dp
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Looking for a career (and knowledge base) expanding training and networking opportunity in Emergency Management?
Much like how many of my experiences begin, I was looking for the next "level" in EM. I am always looking for the next great training to take and share with my facility, my peers, or the readers of this blog. Or maybe I could find a challenging certification program, a grad certificate, or maybe even an opportunity to expand my experience in field by promoting, volunteering, or serving on a committee/project. The day I found EmergencyManagementAcademy.org however, I found something I had been looking for off and on for a while now: a Fellowship. I bookmarked the page, printed the site screens, and quickly shot off an e-mail asking for more information. I received a very quick response from New York City lead Professor/Facilitator at the Emergency Management Academy, Scot Phelps. What is the punch line? Scot says it himself:
"I finally figured out if I want to develop high quality graduate emergency management education programs the best way I know how, I would have to just do it myself: The Emergency Management Academy is a graduate-level, reading-and-discussion focused program that facilitates participants mastering a SPECIFIC expert-consensus Body of Knowledge. No bureaucracy, no extraneous courses, no endless meetings- just rigorous learning of the industry-developed core knowledge through reading and discussion. This should be great!"
Well, the Fellowship in Emergency Management Begins September 20thâ¦and I am planning to be a part of it. Immediately after reviewing the program's website in greater detail and speaking with Scot, I enrolled. In fact, I plan on reporting "live from the Academy" on a monthly basis. I will comment on the depth of the course work and the value of the interactions, collaboration, networking and experience overall. On that note, my cohort is shaping up to be very impressiveâ¦as of right now, 5 of the 12 slots are filled and one admission pending for the first Fellowship program. Among the first cohort participants are a well-known physician emergency manager, a senior business continuity manager from a major investment bank, an emergency manager from one of the largest multi-state health systems in the Midwest, a former NYC OEM staff member, and ME (no pressure). That, however, leaves 6 open seats in what is sure to be one of the most engaging experiences in the field, and the first in a long tradition of Fellowship academy cohorts. Will you join me?
What is the Fellowship Program?
"The Fellowship in Emergency Management is a 1-year intensive graduate-level learning program where participants read and discuss the Emergency Management Graduate Body of Knowledge, books representing the core knowledge of the emergency management field, as selected by hundreds of emergency management professors from around the world at the Federal Emergency Management Agency Higher Education Conference. It is designed for the mid-career emergency manager, and although it will focus on graduate-level discussion, participants are not required to have a previous college degree"
Working with cohort groups of 12 (or less) Fellows will read, research, collaborate, and master the science and application of Emergency Management principles. Upon successful completion of the program, participants will be awarded the title of "Fellow of the Academy of Emergency Management (FAcEM)".
There are still 6 seats left...but going quickly. I look forward to seeing you there (virtually)!
I invite you to join the ongoing discussions at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
Also, join me at Linkedin and on Twitter ( ClinicalEM )
As always, stay safe. dp
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This Friday my colleague and I will be holding a class for our trauma center. It will consist of the Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings (IRTB) awareness level class with some additional case studies, round tables, table top exercises and hospital specific information, considerations, and strategies to follow the 4 hour course. We are embarking on a series of courses aimed to raise the awareness levels and change the psychology (it can't or won't happen here) in the hospital. We will be bringing more healthcare/hospital specific structure to the areas of terror response (as well as the possibility of being targeted and not simply planning to be the receivers of event victims), homicide/suicide bombers, active shooters, and many other areas that are common areas of discussion in the LE, Fire, and EMS realms but still not adequately integrated into the healthcare arena. We hope to measure our initial successes, add to our repertoire, and take this show on the road (initially to other hospitals in California and eventually nationally).
I would love to hear your thoughts, lessons learned, or other input/feedback/critique. We are in this together...
I invite you to join the ongoing discussions at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
Also, join me at Linkedin and on Twitter (ClinicalEM)
As always, stay safe. dp
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Looking for a can't miss conference this month? Check out the 2010 Bicoastal Counter Terrorism Summit being presented by The HALO Corporation. San Diego, CA: June 7th â11th, 2010 and if you miss that, Ft. Lauderdale, FL: July 12â16th, 2010.
I have personally been speaking with Mr. Brad Barker (President at The HALO Corporation) and know that this training is TRULY a no miss. Check out the week long lineup for the 2010 conference in San Diego here
The HALO Corporation is a non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by former Special Operations, National Security, and Intelligence personnel. HALO exists to provide safety and security for those in need and to improve: force protection, all aspects of security, humanitarian aid, and disaster response.
As always, join the ongoing discussions at Hospital / Clinical Emergency Management
Also, join me at Linkedin and on Twitter (ClinicalEM)
Stay safe - dp
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Latest Emergency Management News
2011 was a memorable year for the emergency management field — and for the many Americans impacted by disasters.
Much of this infrastructure is decades old and will take millions of dollars to maintain and replace.
Every event related to critical infrastructure is unique, leaving planners to face more unknowns than knowns.
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