This week, Minneapolis conducted a metro-wide drill around a mock "alert" about a single case of the plague. The city not only involves government agencies, but also private organizations including many of the major hospitals. The Metropolitan Hospital Compact used the MissionMode incident management system to manage communications between all of their member healthcare facilities. And one facility, Fairview Health, decided to conduct their own internal drill in conjunction with this city-wide exercise. - and also used MissionMode extensively. We salute Minneapolis for their continued efforts to prepare their city should a real emergency ever present itself. And we're proud when we hear comments about how well MissionMode worked.
Here is the full text of an article that appeared in the Star Tribune.
Drill covers 'what-ifs' of health disaster
Maura Lerner, Star Tribune
Imagine that a terrorist released the plague at a Minnesota Twins game at the Metrodome. How would hospitals handle the sudden onslaught of patients?
That's what Dr. John Hick, an expert in emergency preparedness, hopes to find out this week through a metro-wide disaster drill called Snowball 3.
The drill, which Hick helped design, began quietly on Sunday when the Minnesota Department of Health issued a mock "alert" about a single case of the plague.
The hospitals knew some kind of simulation was coming, but none of the details.
By Wednesday, they were preparing for nearly 3,000 plague "victims," and creating a makeshift clinic for overflow patients in a cavernous exhibition hall at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
To make the simulation as realistic as possible, about 150 doctors, nurses and other health workers gathered at the convention center Wednesday, armed with face masks and medical supplies.
There was no fake blood. But there were plenty of cranky "patients" demanding attention, and people handing out "antibiotics" that looked a lot like M&Ms.
As disaster drills go, this one is "nearly unprecedented," said Hick, medical adviser for the Metropolitan Medical Response System, which sponsored the federally funded project.
The simulation was designed to test how an entire community copes with a crisis that could overwhelm the medical system. And the response so far, he said, has been "better than expected."
The plot unfolds like this: A terrorist re! leases a n airborne or "weaponized" form of pneumonic plague in the Metrodome during a game with 43,000 in attendance. After a three-day incubation period, the first cases appear, triggering a statewide alert, and start to snowball quickly (hence the simulation's title). The plague can be treated, or prevented, with antibiotics. But if untreated, it can lead to pneumonia and turn deadly.
The challenge to hospitals at a time like this, Hick said, is how to make room for thousands of new patients practically overnight. That's what 29 area hospitals were asked to figure out on Tuesday, when 4,100 of their 5,000 hospital beds were already full, he said.
By the end of the day, he said, they had found ways to make room for 2,500 more patients by sending patients home early, canceling elective surgeries, doubling up patients in rooms, and even setting up cots.
They also identified about 300 patients who were too sick to go home, but could go elsewhere for care.
So far, it was a virtual exercise. But on Wednesday, they set up a 50-bed "alternative care facility" that could handle overflow patients from the hospitals.
The first mock "patients" arrived at the convention center shortly after noon, ready to start complaining.
"It hurts. I can't breathe," said Beth Hoeniger, a volunteer from White Bear Lake, posing as an agitated elderly woman. "I want to see my son before I die."
Occasionally, the "patients" would crack a smile. The health workers seemed deadly serious. They attended every patient, even the cardboard cutouts that filled some beds, and pondered the symptoms on their charts.
"I wanted to go to the hospital where they can save my life, not here," said Cindy Johnson of Eden Prairie, playing a frightened man who thought he had the plague. In character, she stopped every passerby. "Can you get me to a hospital?"You're not going to the hospital," John Lapakka, a retired nurse, re! plied firmly. "We try to do the best we can. This is kind of a! stressf ul time for everybody. You know, everybody is scared."
The simulation ends Thursday.
We will soon have a case study available about how MissionMode was used during this drill. But to learn more, please feel free to give us a call at +1 612.822.4800 or toll free in the US at 877.833.7763
