If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that catastrophic disasters are unpredictable.
They cause the worst healthcare crisis. At times, even at a worldwide level. This is why emergency preparedness is so crucial when it comes to any health crisis aversion. From emergency evacuation when traveling to strengthening cross-sector partnerships, every healthcare industry is doing its best to prepare its team for emergencies.
If you are worried about your current healthcare management system, just remember there is a solution.
In this excerpt below, we will be discussing just that!
The following blog includes:
Healthcare sectors and what they are doing for emergency preparedness.
What you can do as a consumer is to always be prepared.
What Is Emergency Management?
Before we talk about how it is done, let us understand what emergency management is. That is what they consist of! For a healthcare conglomerate like Pinnacle Recovery, dealing with an emergency, these are a few scenarios they deal with:
Emergency management encompasses every healthcare assistance that will benefit public health. This means there is no class distinction or discrimination when healthcare providers extend their emergency services in times of crisis.
Simply, their job is to:
- Mitigate the situation, i.e., understand where the healthcare crisis is and how they can prevent or lower the damage already done.
- Preparedness, i.e., having a team of healthcare crisis management experts trained and always on alert. This ensures there is little to no time wasted when it comes to taking control.
- Response, i.e., responding to potential patients who are in a state of healthcare crisis and would require immediate medical help.
- Recovery, i.e., the process after the crisis aversion. This usually deals with experts helping patient/patients get back on their feet after dealing with the healthcare crisis. This includes both physiological and emotional recovery.
How The Healthcare Industry Can Do Better With Emergency Situation
Here are some of the technological and social transformations that have allowed and are still helping healthcare institutions to do better when it comes to crisis aversion.
1. Cross-Sector Partnership
Sometimes, a healthcare crisis could be at a huge scale. An unfortunate example could be the Covid19, where thousands required evacuation and quarantine facilities to prevent cross-contamination.
In an emergency crisis like this, it is almost impossible for just one sector to mitigate the situation. This is when they require other emergency services to collaborate and assist them. For example, if a group of patients falls sick with a severe viral disease away from their hometown, they might require immediate evacuation.
This is where a hospital or a healthcare service provider’s cross-sector partnership with an air ambulance would be helpful.
Similarly, many healthcare providers also tie up with insurance companies. Because when someone is in a crisis state, they are not in a state of mind to think about medical insurance. Getting their loved one healthy and back at their feet is all they care about. This is when the hospital’s tie-up with different insurance companies will help the patient.
2. Building A Strong Emergency Mitigation Team
The preparedness of the team often determines whether they will be able to manage the crisis. Undoubtedly, this requires experts who are not only medically trained but have worked in crisis aversion before. For example, they have been associated with a disaster team or medical professionals who have worked in the army.
A healthcare management team not only requires these exceptional personalities, but they should also hone the ability to train others.
This is how an emergency team can make better crisis aversion:
- Regular meetings with managers to discuss different scenarios and the first action plan.
- Review every other emergency response plan of the healthcare organization and make the necessary changes.
- Enroll an emergency management software whose inventory will alert everyone during a crisis with the first action plan to be initiated.
- Having emergency managers working on every sector, natural calamity, man-made disasters like terrorism, public health careers like COVID-19, and exposure to sudden chemical radiation.
- Create a partnership with local drugstores, blood banks, and other healthcare facility providers.
One can also check AHA’s new rendition of disaster management and emergency preparedness to get better.
3. Emotional Support
Often, emergency health crises do not just come with physical problems but emotional trauma as well. The latter part of emotional crisis management consists of a recovery action plan.
These are very much taken forward by professionals who have training in recovering patients after an emergency. Some of the experts who will be working on patients during recovery are:
Physiotherapist and Chiropractor to help someone get back on their feet (literally).
Therapists and psychiatrists judge the mental state of the patient and provide treatment to help them become normal mentally. If their medical emergencies were due to trauma, it is very important to help the patients recover from the emotional trauma alongside the physical one.
Even the psychiatric ward requires full training for emergency preparedness when it comes to terrorism disasters or mass shootings.
What Can You Do As A Consumer
It is not always the responsibility of the healthcare service provider to help us manage the crisis. Sometimes, we also have to take matters into our own hands and ensure we are prepared in case of any medical emergency.
Some of the expert method to prepare yourself for emergencies as a civilian are:
1. Assessing The Different Risk
What kind of medical risk could you or your family come across? Do you have the necessary plan of action for them?
If not, what should be your plan of action?
For example, if you are traveling abroad and you have allergies or chronic diseases that can act up, what travel health insurance do you have?
Do you have an emergency-prepared medical kit with every prescribed medicine that can help you or a loved one get out of the situation?
These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself when thinking about emergency preparedness. Most importantly, when you have made a plan of action, remember to get your family on board on that plan of action.
2. Having A Healthcare On Speed Dial
No matter what your action plan is, it will require everyone to be in the same place. This means having a healthcare survival provider on a speed dial.
When looking for a healthcare service provider for your family, here is what you should look for:
- How fastidious they are in terms of emergencies.
- Types of emergency mitigation facilities they provide.
- Special doctors working in the field who can deal with rare cases.
- Their aftercare and recovery program.
- Insurance ties of the healthcare provider.
3. Emergency Communication Application
Last but not least would be having a medical emergency communication application for you and your family. Emergency communication applications are critical in medical emergencies as they enable swift and precise communication among healthcare providers, first responders, and patients.
These apps facilitate the transmission of vital patient information, such as medical history, allergies, and current medications, ensuring that healthcare professionals make informed decisions promptly.
In life-threatening situations, every second counts, and these apps expedite the dispatch of emergency services, reducing response times. Plus, you wouldn’t have the time to elaborate upon every medical history. The medical emergency application will come in handy as it can help doctors make a quick assessment of the case and begin treatment immediately. Additionally, they can enable video consultations with medical experts, offering immediate guidance for on-site responders.