We’re heading into winter soon, with temperatures dropping, snow falling to the ground and people planning warm weather getaways. Regardless of the climate, however, emergency medical personnel must navigate a host of patient emergencies, while also protecting themselves and their equipment from adverse weather conditions. 

Maintenance, Practice and Preparing for Different Patient Scenarios

There are many unpredictable outcomes that can occur during airway suctioning, so it’s important to practice with a range of different products, techniques and practice codes when conducting trainings with your team. Using training equipment that allows for realistic simulations of emergency suctioning scenarios will arm your team with the strategy necessary to perform treatment steps effectively and accurately in various high-stress situations.

At SSCOR, we pride ourselves on providing suction that lasts — both in our devices’ consistent performance during each use and the machines’ long lifecycles. 

Each of those characteristics are enhanced with routine maintenance, of course. Emergency medical personnel are well aware their equipment must remain as close to new condition as possible — and, not to mention, sanitized.

Hospital disaster preparedness is so much more than simply writing out a series of steps to be taken in an emergency situation. It’s not something to be done once and then forgotten until needed. Instead, once the plan is created, it should be periodically evaluated, tested, and updated to fill any gaps. We recommend examining your plan at least once every two years.

There are a few different ways that your hospital can audit its plan. These audit methods have varying levels of complexity, but all of them will serve to strengthen your hospital’s current disaster preparedness plan.

Preparing your hospital to handle a disaster is far from a simple process. Not only are there a number of types of disasters that can occur, the coordination of many different departments and disciplines is required.

You’re at home during a thunderstorm, the power cuts out, you search for a flashlight — and the batteries are dead. Plenty of us have been there.

September is National Preparedness Month, and there is no better time to put a disaster preparedness plan in place for your hospital. 

With a well-considered plan, you will be able to tackle problems before they even strike. And although creating a preparedness plan may seem overwhelming, with the right tools and resources, you’ll be able to quickly develop a much clearer understanding of the dangers that can threaten your facility during a crisis.