Programme overview
Introduction:
Hospital disaster preparedness and mass casualty incident management is a 5-day course for hospital emergency, ED, nursing, facilities and quality leads that ends with a reviewed Hospital Emergency Operations Plan and an MCI exercise design for a case hospital. Hospitals struggle when an external disaster code is called and command opens late, casualties arrive faster than wards can clear beds, patients go untracked and families crowd the entrance. Nominees already coordinate departments, shifts or hospital services and work through case studies on plan documents, floor plans and casualty arrival data. CoreConcept Training Center delivers this hospital disaster preparedness course.
Course Objectives:
- Rank hospital hazards with a hazard vulnerability analysis and set the planning priorities of the Hospital Emergency Operations Plan
- Structure a Hospital Incident Management Team under HICS, with command staff, section chiefs, job action sheets and a Hospital Command Centre
- Run code activation, staff notification and MCI triage flow from the receiving bay through treatment zones, with patient tracking and bed release
- Expand staff, stuff, structure and systems along the conventional, contingency and crisis capacity tiers during a casualty surge
- Manage internal emergencies such as fire, utility failure and horizontal or vertical evacuation while keeping families, media, EMS and public health informed
- Design drills, tabletop and full-scale exercises and turn after-action findings into improvement plans and accreditation evidence
Target Audience:
- Hospital emergency management and disaster planning leads who maintain the emergency operations plan and the command centre
- Emergency department leadership responsible for receiving casualties, triage areas and departmental escalation
- Nursing leadership accountable for ward bed release, staff call-in and patient placement during a disaster code
- Facilities, engineering and security leads responsible for utilities, fire safety, access control and evacuation routes
- Quality, patient safety and accreditation leads who keep readiness evidence, exercise records and improvement plans
- Hospital operations and bed management leads who coordinate patient flow, transfers and support services in a crisis
Course Outline:
Day 1: Hospital Disaster Risk Landscape and Readiness Baseline
- Mass Casualty Incident Definitions and Hospital Disaster Code Levels
- External and Internal Disaster Types Affecting Hospital Operations
- Hazard Vulnerability Analysis Scoring of Probability, Severity and Mitigation
- WHO Hospital Emergency Response Checklist Baseline Self-Assessment
- Hospital Disaster Case Reviews of Command, Surge and Evacuation Failures
Day 2: Hospital Emergency Operations Plan and HICS Structure
- Hospital Emergency Operations Plan Base Plan and Functional Annexes
- HICS Command Staff Roles and Hospital Incident Management Team
- HICS Section Chiefs and Job Action Sheets for Departments
- Hospital Command Centre Layout, Status Boards and Communications Equipment
- Incident Action Plan Cycles Across Hospital Operational Periods
Day 3: Code Activation, MCI Triage Flow and Patient Tracking
- Code Activation Criteria, Notification Cascade and Staff Call-In Lists
- MCI Triage Flow From Receiving Bay to Treatment Zones
- START Triage Colour Categories Applied to Hospital Zone Allocation
- Patient Tracking Board, Disaster Identification Numbers and Bed Release
- 4S Surge Model of Staff, Stuff, Structure and Systems
Day 4: Capacity Tiers, Internal Emergencies and External Coordination
- Conventional, Contingency and Crisis Capacity Tiers With Trigger Points
- Hospital Fire Response and Horizontal and Vertical Evacuation Sequencing
- Utility Failure Contingencies for Power, Water and Medical Gases
- Family Assistance Centre, Media Holding Area and Public Information
- Coordination With EMS Dispatch, Receiving Hospitals and Public Health
Day 5: Case Study on EOP Review and MCI Exercise Design
- Case Hospital Emergency Operations Plan Gap Review Against Checklist
- MCI Exercise Objectives, Scenario Injects and Evaluator Guides
- Drill, Tabletop and Full-Scale Exercise Type Selection for Case Hospital
- After-Action Report, Improvement Plan and Accreditation Evidence File
- Hospital EOP Review and MCI Exercise Design Pack Completion
Skills You Will Gain:
- Hazard Vulnerability Analysis
- Emergency Operations Plan Review
- Hospital Incident Command
- Disaster Code Activation
- Casualty Triage Flow Management
- Medical Surge Planning
- Hospital Evacuation Planning
- Healthcare Exercise Evaluation
Why Attend This Course:
- Deliver a Hospital EOP Review and MCI Exercise Design Pack to the hospital director and the emergency management committee
- Decide when to call a disaster code, which wards release beds first and when to move from contingency to crisis capacity
- Avoid untracked patients, blocked evacuation routes and command confusion that delay care in the first hour of a disaster
- Share job action sheets, patient tracking templates and exercise evaluator guides with department heads and shift supervisors
Conclusion:
Back at work, the participant presents the Hospital EOP Review and MCI Exercise Design Pack to the hospital director, the emergency management committee and the heads of emergency, nursing and facilities. They use it to approve plan amendments, updated job action sheets and call-in lists, and to schedule the designed MCI exercise. After that first exercise, the committee should compare activation time, triage flow, patient tracking accuracy and bed release against the exercise objectives, close the gaps in the improvement plan and file the records as accreditation evidence.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
What should participants know before the hospital disaster preparedness and mass casualty incident management course?
Participants should already coordinate a hospital department, shift or support service and know their hospital's current emergency codes. No clinical skill is taught. Bringing an anonymised copy of the emergency operations plan or a recent exercise report helps them apply the case work.
How does hospital disaster preparedness and mass casualty incident management differ from a general incident command course?
It applies command inside one hospital: HICS roles, the Hospital Command Centre, disaster code activation, triage flow through treatment zones, bed release and patient evacuation. General incident command courses cover multi-agency field command and coordination centres and treat hospitals as one partner among many.
Why does hospital disaster preparedness start with a hazard vulnerability analysis?
A hazard vulnerability analysis ranks the hazards a hospital is most likely to face by probability, severity and current mitigation. The ranking decides which annexes the emergency operations plan needs, which scenarios to exercise first and where to invest in supplies, utilities and training.
What do participants take back from the hospital disaster preparedness and mass casualty incident management course?
Participants take back a Hospital EOP Review and MCI Exercise Design Pack with a plan gap list, HICS job action sheets, a code activation cascade, a patient tracking template, exercise objectives, injects and evaluator guides, and an improvement plan format.