Pandemic Planning, MCIs, and OHS Flashcards
Define mass casualty incident.
An incident which produces multiple casualties such that emergency services, medical personnel, and referral systems within the normal catchment area cannot provide adequate and timely response and care without unacceptable mortality and or morbidity.
Define epidemic.
An increase in a disease above what you would normally expect.
Define pandemic.
A worldwide epidemic.
What are the characteristics of a pandemic?
Global disease outbreak, occurs when a new virus emerges, spreads where people have no immunity, is a disease for which there is no vaccine, causes serious illness, and sweeps around the world in a short time.
How many people died in the flu pandemic of 1918?
50 million.
What strain of virus caused the 1918 pandemic?
H1N1
How many people died during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic?
150k-500k
What are some effects of pandemics on healthcare systems?
Facilities become overwhelmed, shortages of staff, beds, ventilators, and supplies, and healthcare workers can also become ill.
What are the things we can do for effective pandemic preparedness and response?
Risk assessment (the risk posed by the virus), policy development, and procedure execution.
What are the steps of a hazard assessment?
List all work related tasks and activities, assess the risk by severity of consequences, probability exposure will occur, and frequency task is done, identify controls that will reduce or eliminate risks, communicate hazard assessments and required controls to all workers who perform the task, evaluate controls periodically to ensure they are effective.
What are the OHS controls?
Elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE.
What is the most effective OHS control?
Physically removing a hazard.
What is the least effective control?
Using PPE when dealing with a hazard.
What are some hazards that RTs face?
Biological, chemical, physical, and psychological.
