Lesson 10: Disaster Planning
Lesson 11: Safety and Infection Control
Lesson 12: Facility Building and Maintenance
Lesson 10: Disaster Planning
- Discuss what you think the administrator’s role should be in developing, activating, and evaluating the facility’s disaster and emergency preparedness plan. Explain why that role is important.
A disaster preparedness plan is useless if employees do not know how the plan functions. Consequently, in my opinion the administrator’s role should be training employees to develop, activate as well as evaluate the present disaster plan’s efficiency. Already there are building and safety regulations established by OBRA (the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act), with which nursing home administrators must be compliant. However, staff may not be conversant with the execution process should a disaster occurs. As such, an important duty of the nursing home administrator is to ensure that every staff member acts appropriately during a disaster in keeping patients and themselves safe.
- Explain when it is appropriate to evacuate residents in the event of a fire and when it is not.
The appropriateness of when to evacuate residents in the event of fire depends on the type of nursing home facility and their disaster preparedness plan model. Precisely, the 2005 New Orleans hurricane disaster reflects that nursing home residents are the most vulnerable during fires or any disaster. For example, 70% of lives lost during this experience were over 60 years old. Importantly, skilled nursing facilities would require immediate evacuations since patients may be more severely affected and more difficult to transport should the fire spread beyond control.
Non-skilled nursing facility must conduct an assessment of the extent of danger first before evacuation procedures are enacted. These patients may still be incapacitated, but not as vulnerable as ones in skilled nursing homes. As soon as this evaluation process is concluded a decision regarding evacuation or not to evacuate must be made. If there are blockages to roadways; fallen electrical poles and flooding evacuation should be postponed until clearance and safety has been restored.
- Often in disaster planning, we tend to overlook multiple simultaneous system failures.
- For example, in the event of a hurricane, you may have an evacuation plan, but what if the roads are blocked and the facility's van is demolished?
The Alabama nursing home disaster is a vivid example of designing an impressed disaster plan without giving attention to situation whereby there are blocked roadways and evacuation is impossible. In my estimation nursing home administrators should not wait until the disaster is in progress to think about evacuating residents because there no guarantee that it would be easy evacuating after the disaster has stuck. Hence, getting residents to a shelters or alternative accommodation must be mandatory. Also, ensuring patients’ safety while in a damaged building is another precautionary measure that is imperative.
- La Rocca Nursing Home relatively managed the disaster exemplarily. However, with the death of a 97 year old resident and impeding lawsuit accusing the administration of negligence due to inhalation of toxic gas and delayed evacuation procedures it is imperative that alternative arrangement must be made irrespective of physical obstructions to property. Perhaps, the rule regarding when to evacuate needs revision since residents should not have been in the building for more than 24 hours with damaged gas pipes. Besides, they were elder with depreciating bodily functions which should have been considered a priority.
Lesson 11: Safety and Infection Control
Define the following terms, illustrating each definition with at least one example:
- Assistive devices are also known as assistive technology. They are classified as equipment/tools which assist persons with disability to function more effectively in performing the daily activities of living. Examples of assistive devices are wheel chairs scoters, walkers and hearing aids.
- Personal protective equipment are devices used to protect the body from injury while conducting a dangerous procedure. These include gloves, clothes, goggles, masks and helmets.
- Standard precautions relate to measures taken by health care providers to avoid contamination with infected bodily fluids/substances. They include using protective devices when coming in direct contact with infected patients or patients generally where a diagnosis is uncertain. There are standard precautions peculiar to various categories of disease transmission routes inclusive of blood, sputum, perspiration and droplets.
- Right-to-Know Laws are applicable to the environment whereby persons living in a certain community have a right to know about chemicals present in the atmosphere, which could be harmful. There are two forms of right to know laws. One pertains to the community and another workplace. The occupational health and safety act specifies the right to know substances, which must be disclosed to employees and community members. They include cyanide; cyfluthrin and cypermethrin, which can lead to serious illnesses and death.
- Preventive maintenance is servicing equipment to ensure efficient functioning continues. Subsequently, facilities would ensure safety of staff and residents through satisfactory operating fire extinguishers and similar devices. The process usually entails systematic inspection, designed to detect, and correct function irregularities occurring within systems and facility generally. An example of preventative maintenance is when a construction crew visits a facility to check for leaks; broken windows or locks that do not work.
- Home-Like environment is a concept used to describe facilities’ innovations, which endeavor to create structures in residents’ rooms that are similar to a home instead of a house or institution. For example, form couples there may be an effort to design rooms whereby they can be housed together. While the people living in these facilities are not blood relatives deliberate efforts are made to make each one feel connected as family through interactions such as games, tours and visits (Townsend & Davis, 2013).
g. ANSI standards are regulations designs by private nonprofit organizations to foster cooperation in utilizing services products, systems, processes, and personnel in United States of America. These guidelines establish boundaries wherein interactions could be conducted. An example of ANSI standards execution is ANSI C where software language standards are applicable in electronic record communication.
h. Unsafe Working Conditions pertain to physical, biological and chemical hazards present in the work environment, which are harmful to employees. Examples of unsafe working conditions are environments with faulty fire extinguishers; stairs that skid or jobs that involve sandblasting, which causes cancers ultimately (Townsend & Davis, 2013).
Lesson 12: Facility Building and Maintenance
- List at least three examples of steps that can be taken to make resident rooms more homelike, explaining how each step listed accomplishes that purpose.
The first step is changing the room’s appearance into efficiency rather than /a doctor’s office in a hospital environment. Depending on the mobility potential of the resident, it would mean designing a kitchenette with a microwave, medium size refrigerator and a living room space distinct from the sleeping areas. For the living room space in creating an excellent home like environment it would be ideal furnishing it with a three piece suit, center table and television/stand; carpet on the floor along with decorative lowers and ornaments to the wall. These are essentials to beautifying a room/home distinguishing it from a nursing home/’hospital environment.
Secondly, once the resident can afford the cost it is always better for him/her to occupy the room without sharing space with another resident. This maintains the privacy contained in home environment rooms. Many nursing home rooms across the nation two residents may share a room with someone he/she never met. This intervention removes the home culture initiating an institution philosophy model. Hence, encouraging designs that create single occupancy could be beneficial towards maintaining a home like environment.
Thirdly, when a resident is about to occupy a room the attending administrator could inquire if he/she has any cherished piece of furniture at home that could be added to the environment. For that individual it would create this personal home environment feeling since the furniture provides a sense of belonging.
2. Complete the following statements:
a. The Life Safety Code requires that fire drills be held at least once per month_________________.
b. An emergency electrical generator must supply power for at least the following: ___operating room, emergency departments during a continuous 24 hour period____________________________________________.
c. OBRA regulations require at least _two_____ window(s) in each resident room.
d. The principle cause of death in fires is ___suffocation through smoke inhalation____________________.
e. Various building and construction enforcement agencies currently include __Department of housing; Code enforcement department_______.
References
Townsend, J., & Davis, W. (2013). The Principles of Health Care Administration. Publicare.
