Pea-n-Me
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This article talks about some of the challenges that exist when people are brought into hospitals after a disaster, often without any identification.
"What is the priority?’’ asked Brenda Whelan, an intensive care nurse who has long worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We have to save the patient first, then work on IDing them. That causes stress to families.”
The first six victims were wheeled to emergency surgery; only one had been identified. One woman “was on the verge of death,’’ Conn said. “She had no blood pressure; she had lost all of her blood and was very critical. An extra couple of minutes and she wouldn’t have survived. She was lucky.’’
https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifesty...hon-bombing/7fFWuivM3tTKbIFAyn1BIJ/story.html
The bombings brought forward a problem that has vexed trauma hospitals for years: the identification of victims.
Within minutes of the April 15 bombing, many patients arrived unconscious and without purses, wallets, or family members to identify them. An ambulance brought one woman to Massachusetts General Hospital with a handbag, but it wasn’t hers. It belonged to her best friend, who was killed on Boylston Street. Before the mixup was noticed, the family of the dead woman was told she was in a hospital bed.
There were challenges keeping patients straight at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, too. Staff assigned unidentified victims six-digit numbers, but they were confusing, and doctors and nurses had to continually double-check that imaging test results and medications were going to the correct patient. There were no mix-ups, said Dr. Eric Goralnick, medical director of emergency preparedness, but “we had some near misses.’’
Relatives and friends crowded waiting rooms, desperately searching for loved ones and pleading for any shred of information about their conditions. It didn’t help that siblings and spouses had been separated and that wounded parents and children, too, had been rushed to different hospitals.
A mother at Boston Medical Center, where her daughter-in-law was being treated, anxiously searched for her son. “The mother was very upset,” recalled Rebecca Blair, executive director of patient experience. “She was desperate.” Eventually, hospital president Kate Walsh called over to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and located the son.
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Here is another article that talks about what mass casualty emergency responses at hospitals are like:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-bostons-hospitals-were-ready
"What is the priority?’’ asked Brenda Whelan, an intensive care nurse who has long worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We have to save the patient first, then work on IDing them. That causes stress to families.”
The first six victims were wheeled to emergency surgery; only one had been identified. One woman “was on the verge of death,’’ Conn said. “She had no blood pressure; she had lost all of her blood and was very critical. An extra couple of minutes and she wouldn’t have survived. She was lucky.’’
https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifesty...hon-bombing/7fFWuivM3tTKbIFAyn1BIJ/story.html
The bombings brought forward a problem that has vexed trauma hospitals for years: the identification of victims.
Within minutes of the April 15 bombing, many patients arrived unconscious and without purses, wallets, or family members to identify them. An ambulance brought one woman to Massachusetts General Hospital with a handbag, but it wasn’t hers. It belonged to her best friend, who was killed on Boylston Street. Before the mixup was noticed, the family of the dead woman was told she was in a hospital bed.
There were challenges keeping patients straight at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, too. Staff assigned unidentified victims six-digit numbers, but they were confusing, and doctors and nurses had to continually double-check that imaging test results and medications were going to the correct patient. There were no mix-ups, said Dr. Eric Goralnick, medical director of emergency preparedness, but “we had some near misses.’’
Relatives and friends crowded waiting rooms, desperately searching for loved ones and pleading for any shred of information about their conditions. It didn’t help that siblings and spouses had been separated and that wounded parents and children, too, had been rushed to different hospitals.
A mother at Boston Medical Center, where her daughter-in-law was being treated, anxiously searched for her son. “The mother was very upset,” recalled Rebecca Blair, executive director of patient experience. “She was desperate.” Eventually, hospital president Kate Walsh called over to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and located the son.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Here is another article that talks about what mass casualty emergency responses at hospitals are like:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-bostons-hospitals-were-ready
