It’s a normal day … until it’s not.
The pandemic made clear the essential role of frontline staff in crisis and disaster situations. Michael Wasserman, MD, past president of the California Association of Long-Term Care Medicine, said it also made evident that many frontline staff had no formal emergency preparedness training.
Wasserman shared findings of a recent research paper published in Health Affairs with R. Tamara Konetzka, PhD, of the University of Chicago during a Wednesday LeadingAge membership call. The paper focused on integrating overall emergency response infrastructure into senior housing and services and creating better leaders in disaster response to head off future catastrophes.
The bottom line, he said, is that senior living, nursing home and senior services providers need to look at emergencies and disasters through the lens of “before, during and after.”
“Checklists, policies and procedures, disaster plans — they sit on shelves,” Wasserman said. “They don’t reflect what you actually have to do in the heat of the moment.”
It all comes down to effective leadership and following an incident command concept, he said, adding that the hallmark of good leadership is a team approach.
“At the end of the day, the buck has to stop with someone. There is a person who has to make the final decision,” Wasserman said. “But if that person doesn’t listen to their team, then you have bad outcomes.”
Dealing with emergencies, he said, is no different than how leaders and teams problem-solve and make decisions about day-to-day incidents. Offering the right type of training, and structuring things in the right way to ensure everyone is prepared — including frontline staff — will lead to success in the face of a crisis.
Wasserman referenced an emergency preparedness in long-term care pilot program recently launched by the Arizona Health Care Association, the state affiliate of the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living, and the National Association for Health Care Assistants. The partners rolled out the program at a recent seminar that included Fire and Life Safety President Stan Szptek.
The “All Hands on Deck” program examines components of essential emergency preparedness including an incident command system, emergency management steps, emotional resilience, shelter in place versus evacuation, active shooter situations and survey compliance.
