99nicu Poll: Evacuation Preparedness of your NICU

[JACK]

Being prepared for disasters is of paramount importance. I am sure all NICUs have some sort of drills / evacuation (horizontal and vertical), etc on a regular basis.

I want to know how you are preparing your units/staff for an emergency. What equipments do have for evacuation? What plans have you made? What contingency plans have you made? Have you done a full evacuation drill? In case of a real emergency will you be able to evacuate all your patients in a timely manner?

Do you use evacuation vests( Vests with pockets for keeping babies !) ?

Have you faced a real emergency in your NICU? How was your experience?

[dr mir]

hi jack u r adressing avery imp topic unfortunetly we have nt reached that levl yet though we live in aearthquake prone and each year thr r sig shocks our evacuation plan mainly consists of running out the buildings with the patients following behind if they can later the beds may be brought outdoors and sifted back in whn the panic decreases .do post the protocols .

[JACK]

This is a nice document available online:

www.luhs.org/depts/emsc/NICU_evac_guidelines.pdf

[selvanr4]

Thanks a lot.

Really nice.

[rvasa]

We do have a plan and we do use evacuation vests. Once a year, the staff go through a paper based competency test to update the knowledge, however there is no formal drill on a regular basis. We did face a situation several years ago, when we had a small fire in the NICU, which necessitated evacuating NICU, using vest. Fire was quickly controlled and everybody returned to unit within 20-30 minutes or so.

[Guest safaa5@hotmail.com]

Thank you ,it is very useful

[Guest tenzin zompa]

thank you jack for the link..its very informative ....we dont have any evacuation guidlines here in our hospital....

[Plyon0962]

Being prepared for disasters is of paramount importance. I am sure all NICUs have some sort of drills / evacuation (horizontal and vertical), etc on a regular basis.

I want to know how you are preparing your units/staff for an emergency. What equipments do have for evacuation? What plans have you made? What contingency plans have you made? Have you done a full evacuation drill? In case of a real emergency will you be able to evacuate all your patients in a timely manner?

Do you use evacuation vests( Vests with pockets for keeping babies !) ?

Have you faced a real emergency in your NICU? How was your experience?

[Plyon0962]

we reveiw every year what we would do for different internal and external emergencys. we have special aprons that we can carry 5-6 baby's in. we also have double windows for high winds...we do live in tornado alley....and our hospital does daster drills every year.

[Guest dr hazeena]

Thank you JACK for the link to the evacuation document.I was actually searching for a comprehensive one like this.