Our BCU team has been strengthening partnerships within our state assessment hospitals and frontline facilities this past month. Several members of our team observed and evaluated a full functional drill at MedStar Southern Maryland in Clinton, demonstrating their activation operations in the early hours of the morning. Our team collaborated with Southern Maryland’s emergency management and shared lessons learned in regards to workflow through designated spaces, training and waste management. We look forward to observing their next full functional drill in October that will challenge their clinical skills in caring for a patient infected with high consequence pathogens in full personal protective equipment ensembles.
Additionally, another successful frontline training was completed at MedStar Harbor Hospital in Baltimore as well and our team members. Chad Bowman, Lifeline’s lead for the Special Operations Response Team (SORT), and Dauryne Shaffer, one of our BCU nurse super users, lent their expertise and time in presenting and facilitating the skills stations for the day. The team looks forward to facilitating several more trainings throughout the next month to contribute to the state’s overall preparedness and capacity for caring for such a unique and vulnerable patient population.
The BCU team also finished a successful quarterly training season with greater than 95 percent compliance. This quarter focused on emergency procedures including provider down, evacuation and the crowd favorite: annual fire extinguisher training.
-Janine Jade Borromeo Flinn, MSN, RN, CCRN, CNRN
