In recognition of Earthquake Preparedness Month in October, many Valley teams took the opportunity to make sure we are prepared to respond in the case that an earthquake were to strike our area. The activities included two large-scale Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) drills around our Emergency Department and surgical areas that involved multiple departments. Volunteers from the community acted as our “casualties,” including a number of high school drama students. Our providers, nurses, and other support staff worked together to triage the “injured” and respond just as they would in a real earthquake emergency.
A big thank you to the departments that participated, including: Emergency Department, Perioperative, Perianesthesia, Endoscopy, Security, Facilities, PBX, CAR Team, and Emergency Preparedness. In addition to the MCI drills, several of these groups also performed smaller-scale exercises in their departments.
The MCI drill on Oct. 17 also was covered in the local news, with stories from FOX 13 and KIRO 7.
In the KIRO 7 story, Cassidy Modlin, Senior Emergency Preparedness Specialist, shared that Valley used the drill to test our ability to receive a large number of patients and to see how well our Emergency Department and operating room staff communicate in the mass casualty situation.
“We are testing how we register those patients. How we receive them into the (Emergency Department) all the way through to get the care that they need, possibly the surgery that they need,” Modlin said.
Thank you to our media partners for spreading the word about this important work and helping our community to learn more about how to respond to an earthquake!
If you missed out on the fun, you can watch the behind-the-scenes video in this Instagram reel. (Don’t forget to follow @wearevalley while you’re there!)
In September, Valley hosted Gabriel Lotto, PhD, an earthquake scientist with the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. Watch his lecture to learn more about Washington’s subduction zone in relation to earthquake preparedness, and new technologies related to early warning systems.
If you’d like to learn more about how to respond in the case of an earthquake, there are resources available at shakeout.org.
