Effectiveness of Emergency Management and Disaster Readiness of Trauma Centers in Washington

¶ … Emergency Management and Disaster Readiness of Trauma Centers in Washington, DC

Effective and immediate response of health care providers during emergency situations is very critical to meet the need of the affected population during the man-made and natural disasters (Smith, 2009). However, delivery of effective and efficient healthcare service is becoming extremely complex during the emergency situation such as tornado, volcanic explosion, and earthquake events. Preparedness of health care providers has become apparent after the collapse of Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in September 11 in 2001 and Seattle windstorm in 2006, Colorado's blizzards in 2006, Hurricanes Katrina in 2005, and the Northeast Blackout in2003 (Ross et al., 2007). Major disaster events in the United States have led to the substantial growth of healthcare providers to deliver quality health care during emergency situations.

The establishment of efficient and effective procedures as well as preventive mechanisms with regard to disaster readiness and emergency management is very critical for healthcare providers (Eugene, 2002). Two key variables are very important for the quality of care for patients:

Disaster readiness, and Emergency management

The concepts assist the stakeholders to plan for a critical and effective determination of the two variables with reference to the improvement of the patients' quality of care (Engelmann et al., 2013).

Disasters are crisis situations generally cause widespread damage and exceed the ability of the affected person to recover. Advanced planning is very critical to assist affected person to survive and quickly recover from a disaster (Taylor & Stephenson, 2013). Trauma centers are the hospitals equipped with staff and resources to deliver comprehensive emergency medical services to people affected by the events. Trauma centers grow into existence with the realization that patients suffering from traumatic injuries require specialized and multidisciplinary treatments. Trauma centers generally deal with emergency care related to rapid incidents. Examples of the rapid incidents include mass casualties from terrorist attacks, accidents in public transportation systems, and natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, and floods (Unlu et al., 2012). Washington, DC has various health centers and hospitals equipped with vital resources and detailed plans to minimize the loss of life (Taylor & Stephenson, 2013). Top hospitals or medical care centers in Washington, DC designated as trauma centers include Evergreen Health, Southwest Washington, Central Washington Hospital, Valley, and Harborview Medical Center (TCAA, 2013).

Statement of the Problem

Preparedness to manage disasters and emergencies is very critical for the trauma centers owing to the mass casualty incidents (MCIs). Gomez et al. (2011) evaluates effectiveness and the level of preparedness in the trauma centers and the extent their preparedness has been integrated with the MCIs response. The findings reveal that level and effectiveness of trauma centers' preparedness has been limited.