How would a disaster involving weapons of mass destruction affect your hospital crisis communications plan? Would you be able to manage the release of critical information
while minimizing the panic caused by terrorist attacks? This month, a federally mandated counterterrorisim drill will force hospitals in Denver, Portsmouth, N.H., and the
Washington, D.C. area to answer these questions. The drill is meant to test how quickly various emergency responders can identify and diagnose biological, chemical and nuclear
attacks, conduct mass immunizations and deliver massive emergency patient care. The exercise will involve a mock news channel, coordinated by the Department of Justice and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, called the Virtual News Network, that will send out "news crews" to cover the various disasters. Officials will need to decide what to tell
the public and how to best minimize wide-scale panic. This will be the first disaster exercise of its kind, involving top-level federal, state and local officials.
Although the drill is focusing on three markets, hospitals everywhere should use it as an opportunity to evaluate their disaster plans.
To simulate a real-life disaster, the date and time of the exercises are unknown and will last for 10 days. Notification will go out to all hospitals, law enforcement agencies,
the National Guard and state agencies.
When the exercise, dubbed Operation TOPOFF, is under way, crisis communications is one of the key areas that will be tested and scrutinized, says Stephanie Denning, who heads
up PR for DenverHealth, one of three Denver hospitals that will participate in the drill.
The hospital system, which is a Level I trauma center, runs the emergency medical system for Denver, the public health department and the regional poison center.
It regularly tests disaster scenarios. Denning says three recent high-profile incidents in Denver required the hospital to look more closely at the potential for terrorists
attacks - the Terry McNichols trial, the Pope's visit and the 1997 Summit of Eight Heads of State.
What is particularly useful about this drill is that hospitals will become intimately aware of each governmental agency's function, when to involve a particular agency and
where the chain of command is, says Denning.
Testing Small-City Resources
As a large metropolitan market, Denver has had federally funded preparedness training. Portsmouth, N.H., however, represents most small cities and has never had this kind of
specialized training.
It is expected to be a case study in how a small city would react to a terrorism attack, says Dr. Donavon Albertson, the director of emergency medical services at Portsmouth
Regional Hospital (PRH). For this reason, the hospital hasn't made any special arrangement to prepare for the exercise. It will work with community resources to assess and
diagnose the chemical agent used in the attack.
From a communications standpoint, the challenge will be to get information out as early as possible to the local media about the nature of the disaster while not creating a
scare, says Nancy Notis, PRH's PR manager.
Although the hospital staff, patients and the media are aware that the exercise is a drill, Notis says that it's critical to use the opportunity to identify the communication
breakdowns. This learning will help the hospital determine what information systems may need to be acquired to manage the crisis and what hardware enhancements are needed, says
Dr. Albertson.
After the drills, HPRMN will follow up with the hospitals to report on the lessons they learned and the opportunities they discovered to improve communications.
Managing Information About A Terrorist Attack
When a disaster involving a weapon of mass destruction strikes your crisis communications plan should focus on providing:
- accurate information about the nature of the chemical, biological or nuclear agent involved in the attack;
- frequent updates to the media on how the disaster is being managed; and
- emphatic messages about the need to avoid panicking.
- Source: DenverHealth
(DenverHealth, Stephanie Denning, 303/436-6606; Portsmouth Regional Hospital, 603/433-5125; Department of Justice, Chris Watney, 202/616-2777)