West Palm Beach VA Medical Center
WPB VAMC's Western Shelter Mobile Field Hospital
Ariel view of the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center's Western Shelter Mobile Field Hospital.
West Palm Beach VA Medical Center Facilities Maintenance Service prepared the Medical Center's Western Shelter Field Hospital on Saturday, November 16, 2013 for a training exercise. The day was overcast with heavy rain showers along with winds gusting to 35 mph but that didn't stall the mission! The goal for this special training exercise was to have hospital employees learn set up procedures and the "tricks of the trade" for fine tuning and expediting the time necessary for setting up the field hospital. Staff was divided into three training groups as they erected the three tents and the connectors that comprise the field hospital.
The Western Shelter Field Hospital compound is comprised of a hygiene center and entrance vestibule, a twenty bed hospital area complete with hanging medical supply units, and work stations. The main focus for this event was to provide an awareness training opportunity for our physicians, nurses, clinical support and administrative support staff to come out and tour the hospital November 17 through 19, 2013. Tours of the shelter were offered every 30 minutes starting at 9 AM and ending at 4 PM each day by Clinical Education Nurses - Michele Walder, Sue Austin, and Charles Reed, the Emergency Manager - Michael Self, and Pathway Student Intern - Gerry Martinez De Villa. Over the three day training and awareness exercise, over 178 staff toured the field hospital and evaluated its potential for use during five types of scenarios:
1) Pandemic response
2) Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) support for out-patients
3) Contaminated Emergency Room
4) Power/Water outage
5) Contaminated Patient Care Unit
As Medical Center staff toured the field hospital, they were requested to evaluate the design footprint for their particular use/profession and to provide ideas regarding types of medical equipment necessary for their particular patient care situation. As a result of these intuitive evaluations, the Emergency Management Program will be able to develop various equipment lists for the many different types of deployment, thereby accelerating the time necessary for deployment preparations.
Staff response to this training event was extremely positive as evidenced by helpful and constructive comments received from many of the attendees including all facets of Medical Center staff. The Western Shelter Field Hospital was dismantled on a very hot Wednesday, November 20th and as the event started, final activities to return the field hospital back to its readiness storage were conducted during another round of overcast weather, heavy rain showers and wind gusts to 35 mph.
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West Palm Beach VA Medical Center’s official Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/VAWestPalmBeach.
