Decontamination / HERT Training

How do hospitals respond to a sudden influx of patients when disaster strikes?

​A disaster of any scale would really test hospitals in Northern Michigan. In the case of a Mass Casualty Incident, there is a training for that. Region 7 HCC will be offering Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents (HERT) training in the month of June for hospital staff. Our own Regional Coordinator has become a certified HERT trainer and will be traveling across the region to 4 host facilities. He will train hospital staff to become better prepared and equipped to respond effectively and efficiently in a mass casualty. 

In previous years, the annual hospital training has primarily been about decontamination. The difference in the training this year is it's all encompassing nature. During the HERT training, hospital staff can expect to learn the following, as outlined on the CDP website:

• -Analyze the need, composition, and use of a Hospital Emergency Treatment Team during an emergency, mass casualty incident, or disaster situation.
• -Summarize the organization and operation of the Hospital Incident Command System as it integrates with the Incident Command System during response to mass casualty incident.
• -Differentiate the medical responses to a variety of illnesses and injuries that may result from a mass casualty incident.
• -Select and use the appropriate level of personal protective equipment as hospital first receivers in response to a disaster involving patient contamination.
• -Structure the healthcare facility Emergency Treatment Area to support medical operations in response a mass casualty incident.
• -Establish a Hospital Emergency Response Team that meets all safety requirements, provides security to the hospital, and efficiently manages patients for processing into the hospital facility for follow-up treatment.
• -Compare decontamination methods and procedures.
• -Perform Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment© (START) and JumpSTART procedures within the Emergency Treatment Area during a hospital response to a mass casualty incident involving contamination.
• -Conduct operations in an Emergency Treatment Area while wearing appropriate personal protective equipment in response to a mass casualty incident involving contamination.
• -Conduct an effective medical response to a mass casualty incident using the Hospital Emergency Response Team approach.

Hospital staff to benefit from this training includes: physicians, nurses, administrators, security personnel, environmental staff, and other hospital staff. If you or someone from your facility is interested in signing up for the training, you can register for the appropriate location using the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/hospitaldecontraining

For information specific to the Region 7 training, please click the image above to download and/or view the PDF.