Best Practices: Amazing Transfusion/Disaster Planning Simulations

2018 AABB Annual Meeting Session

Program Chair: Jed Gorlin
Speakers: Jed Gorlin; Cullen Case, EMPA, CEM, CBCP, CHEP
Intended Audience: CEO, COO, Director, Medical Director, Physician, Residents/Fellow, Student (MD, MT, SBB), Transfusion Safety Officer
Teaching Level: Intermediate

Learning Objectives:

• Organize a disaster planning/transfusion medicine simulation that includes multiple stakeholders in their local disaster response community
• Conduct drills that reach across multiple departments within and outside of their institution
• Prepare for events of larger than usual magnitude to ensure optimal communication when usual modes of communication are disrupted

Description: While many blood centers and hospital transfusion services have participated in various scenarios for transfusion medicine simulations, the experiences of the Boston Marathon bombing and Las Vegas concert shooter highlight the importance of having drilled disaster scenarios that involve multiple stakeholders beyond just the hospital or blood center staff. We propose to present scenario and disaster planning that we have participated in including mass casualty scenarios from active shooter(s), that include many volunteer high school students playing the parts of injured civilians and include fire, police, EMS and hospital coordinating services.

Cullen Case is the NMDP representative to RITN, the radiation injury treatment network, has created scenarios to anticipate multiple stakeholder response to either a “dirty bomb” or small capacity improvised nuclear device. Since blood product support would be vital in dealing with the aftermath of successful detonation of such a device, it is important to include both blood centers, hospital transfusion services and Radiation response units in all such scenario planning.

This session intends to share both lessons learned in setting up these sort of simulations, as well as how to ensure your hospital/blood center is looped in with your local disaster planning network to get included, where appropriate in such disaster planning events.