Preparing for a disaster is an enormous undertaking since there are always so many unknowns. For rural hospitals, this challenge is further amplified due to issues such as remote location, limited resources, and staffing shortages. Yet by actively preparing for the types of disasters that rural hospitals are most likely to face, such difficulties can be lessened.

Public health experts have been warning about a worldwide pandemic for decades. Unwilling or unable to believe what could happen, most people put their heads in the sand. We’ve now seen that a local virus can tear through lives across the globe, upending everything we do. The next pandemic is inevitable. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as COVID, and we will be better prepared. There’s a distinct possibility, however, that it will be worse. Here’s what your agency can do now to get ready for whatever lies ahead. 

Sooner or later, every nursing home will face a major emergency. Nursing home emergencies exist along a continuum.Issues such as choking may affect only a single patient, whereas outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases such as COVID-19 can endanger the lives of every resident. In 2017, natural disasters affected 8 percent of the U.S. population—and nursing home residents are not exempt from these statistics. Any of these incidents can lead to additional health issues, such as infectious outbreaks and chronic respiratory issues, so it is important to implement a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan. 

As COVID-19, the virus that causes the novel coronavirus infection, continues to ravage the world, medical providers have had to change virtually everything about how they practice. Suctioning a patient is no exception. Providers once only had to weigh the risks and benefits of suctioning to the patient. Now they must also consider how suctioning might endanger their own health, and how it might imperil subsequent patients if they become infected. 

Airway suctioning can generate dangerous aerosols that effectively transmit the virus. In emergency scenarios, Suction Assisted Laryngoscopy and Airway Decontamination (SALAD) may offer a lower-risk alternative to traditional airway suctioning.

The rapid worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus has compelled many seemingly impossible choices: Hospital administrators have had to choose between forcing people to die alone and potentially spreading the virus to others; labor and delivery units must now weigh separating birthing people from their partners or risking transmitting the virus to others, including vulnerable infants. Perhaps one of the most challenging conundrums during this pandemic has been managing the simple realities of CPR. 

The American Heart Association (AHA) recently changed its CPR guidelines to respond to this emerging crisis. Here’s what you need to know.

Overweight or obese patients can present suctioning difficulties. Because most American adults are overweight or obese, medical providers must train in the treatment of bariatric patients. These patients are highly susceptible to airway difficulties, particularly during surgery. The following strategies can help you effectively suction bariatric patients, even when they present with difficult airways.

The COVID-19 crisis has fundamentally shifted the emergency medicine landscape. Providers are exhausted, afraid, and overwhelmed by an increasingly taxed health system. Patients’ lives hang in the balance, and research shows that they’re just as afraid. Fear of the novel coronavirus is now keeping patients with emergency symptoms away from the emergency room. 

COVID-19, the novel coronavirus with apparent origins in Wuhan, China, has overtaken the world of emergency medicine. It’s so new that doctors can’t confidently assert much about it, except that it is highly contagious and potentially lethal. Its specific lethality, however, remains hotly contested—and difficult to prove, given low testing rates and the relatively high prevalence of asymptomatic carriers. You probably already know the basics. Here are five things you must understand to protect yourself and the people you serve.