Hospital Mass Casualty Tornado Disaster Drill 1950s

Hospitals must be prepared to respond to natural and manmade mass casualty incidents that may cause sudden demand on services. Disaster drills allow hospitals to test response capabilities to these emergencies in real time. The value of the approach is to identify specific weaknesses that can be targeted for improvement and to promote continuing efforts to strengthen hospital disaster preparedness. For more about planning and evaluating hospital disaster drills, go to the DHHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) website, Evaluation of Hospital Disaster Drills, at http://www.ahrq.gov/research/hospdrills/hospdrill.htm . This is clipped from the 1954 episode of the Big Picture: Pictorial Report Number 27, available at the Internet Archive. A tornado and fire set the scene for "Exercise Firedrill," staged at Brooke Army Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to test how a hospital might best handle mass civilian casualties of a natural disaster. The mock disaster was slated to affect the City of San Antonio in which nearly 1,000 simulated casualties are treated at Brooke Army Hospital.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Hospital
• Mass
• Casualty
• Tornado
• Disaster
• Drill
• 1954
• Texas
• Brook
• Army
• San
• Antonio
• preparedness
• emergency
• OSHA
• HHS
• DHS
• homeland
• security
• Fort
• Sam
• Houston
• Agency
• Healthcare
• Research
• Quality
• AHRQ
• exercise
• test
• NIEHS