Disaster Preparedness: Education and Training

Hello, my name is Karen Innocent and I’m the Director of Continuing Education and Conferences at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. I’m very happy to have this privilege and opportunity to share with you my insights on continuing education and other skilled development issues for nurses through this blog.
Today’s topic is disaster preparedness education and training. By now, you’ve gotten seen news reports in regards to the earthquake in Haiti for over every week. This hits near home for my family. My husband grew up in Haiti and has family and friends there. Although a lot of the family has made contact, communication issues have left the well-being of others unknown. Like many other compassionate observers, we’re eagerly awaiting excellent news and doing what we are able to to send help.
For me, as a nurse, probably the most disturbing thing about witnessing the aftermath of this disaster is witnessing the uncoordinated rescue efforts and the difficulties that occurred in providing medical services and supplies to survivors. It’s a pity that many individuals may die on account of lack of access to such basic items as antibiotics and clean drinking water. This highlights the importance of presidency and community agencies having a plan and trained professionals ready to reply to emergencies.
Few of us were aware of the potential of an earthquake in Haiti, especially for the reason that Caribbean Islands are more concerned in regards to the threat of hurricanes. When this unexpected tragedy happened, there may be a possibility that natural disasters or large-scale accidents could occur anywhere. In such situations, nurses will be called in to assist. While nurses are well-educated and have specialized skills, we may all wish to brush up on our emergency response skills because we never know when a disaster might strike our hometowns.
We’d prefer to know what you are doing in your community to arrange for disasters and the way your employer is training nurses within the leadership, organizational, and clinical skills needed to reply to emergencies.

If you do not practice in emergency, trauma, or public health, you’ll likely need a review. So I’ve put together a bunch of links to web sites that contain emergency preparedness resources for nurses, health care employees, and most people.

Emergency Preparedness for Home Health Care Nurses, Home Health Care Nurse, January 2006: /library/JournalArticle.asp?Article_ID=621933

Essential Links: Emergency Preparedness, Home Health Care Nurse, January 2006: /library/JournalArticle.asp?Article_ID=621942

Ready. government: http://www.ready.gov/

National Library of Medicine, Disaster Preparedness and Recovery: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/disasterpreparationandrecovery.html

How can I help?

If you desire to to volunteer, you’ll be able to contact the next organizations which are sending health care employees to support the rescue and reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Center for International Disaster Information: http://www.cidi.org/

United States Government: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/country/haiti/eq/dstechas.html

American Red Cross: http://www.westred.org/Volunteer-Disaster.htm

Post via Karen Innocent, MS, RN, CRNP, ANP-BC, CMSRN