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Organize disaster drills with a new, free government tool
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November 1, 2008
A new document called “Tool for Evaluating Core Elements of Hospital Disaster Drills” aims to help healthcare facilities plan, execute, and evaluate the results of their emergency management exercises.
The good news is the tool, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), is free. It’s the CliffsNotes version of the well-regarded drill plan outlined in the 2004 AHRQ document Evaluation of Hospital Disaster Drills: A Module-Based Approach. Because it was built by national preparedness authorities, it would be easy for hospital planners to assume that implementing the document would serve as a shortcut to compliance with Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) emergency management test standards under EC.4.20, which will become EM.03.01.03 in 2009.
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