Hospital preparedness for weapons of mass destruction incidents: An initial assessment

Study objective: We performed an assessment of hospital preparedness for we apons of mass destruction (WMD) incidents in Federal Emergency Management A gency (FEMA) Region III. Methods: Interviews of hospital personnel were completed in 30 hospitals. D ata collected included level of preparedness, mass decontamination capabili ties, training of hospital staff, and facility security capabilities. Results: No respondents believed their sites were fully prepared to handle a biologic incident, 73% (22/30) believed they were not prepared to manage a chemical weapons incident, and 73% believed they were unprepared to handl e a nuclear event. If a WMD incident were to occur, 73% of respondents stat ed a single-room decontamination process would be set up. Four (13%) hospit als (all rural) reported no decontamination plans. WMD preparedness had bee n incorporated into hospital disaster plans by 27% (8/30) of facilities. Ei ghty-seven percent (26/30) believed their emergency department could manage 10 to 50 casualties at once, Only 1 facility had stockpiled any medication s for WMD treatment, All facilities had established networks of communicati on. No hospital had preprepared media statements specific to WMD. Nearly on e fourth (7/30) stated that their hospital staff had some training in WMD e vent management. All reported need for WMD-specific training but identified obstacles to achieving this. Seventy-seven percent (23/30) of hospitals ha d a facility security plan in place, and half were able to perform a hospit al-wide lock down. Ninety-six percent (29/30) reported no awareness regardi ng the threat of a secondary device. Conclusion: Hospitals in this sample do not appear to be prepared to handle WMD events, especially in areas such as mass decontamination, mass medical response, awareness among health care professionals, health communications , and facility security. Further research is warranted, including a detaile d assessment of WMD preparedness using a statistically valid sample represe ntative of hospital emergency personnel at the national level.