NIACH emergency exercise goes smoothly

The Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital (NIACH) conducted a Joint Emergency Preparedness Exercise with the Post Falls Police Department Swat Team on Jan. 28.

The purpose of the exercise was to assist the staff of NIACH in becoming better prepared to handle an adverse event(s) that would severely impact our patients, visitors and staff with the goal of providing a safer, more secure facility and to provide a challenging campus setting for the Swat Team to deploy and counter the threats to NIACH presented during the exercise.

All hospitals and most health care facilities must meet stringent requirements concerning emergency preparedness with new regulations imposed by the Regulatory Authority of the Joint Commission, which surveys each facility for compliance. They require each facility to assess the hazards they might be vulnerable to and then design and prepare drills that test the readiness of the facility staff to handle the emergency situations. The drills are based on human, natural, or technological events most likely to occur over the next 12 months and should address internal and external threats to the facility.

NIACH Senior Team members along with the Emergency Preparedness Committee determined during our annual Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA) that the threats most likely to occur were human and that we were equally vulnerable to either a civil disturbance, a hostage situation, or violence in the workplace. The designed exercise involved a double threat both outside and inside the facility.

The outside threat simulated an attack on the oxygen supply requiring evacuation of our patients and requiring the Swat Team to post snipers and stage an assault on a vehicle threatening our campus, thereby ending the threat.

The inside threat required a penetration into our facility by a perpetrator who took hostages and threatened violence requiring the Swat Team to make entry into the facility and ultimately make a surprise entry into the hostage room and secure the safe release of hostages and overtake the hostage taker.

After the joint exercise was complete, all participants (players) were invited to share their experiences in an open discussion about the strengths and weaknesses and offer their recommendations for improvement.

In order that a full scale exercise could occur it was necessary to close our campus to all outside traffic for two hours. I would like to thank all of the family members, visitors, and vendors for their cooperation and understanding during that time. Thank you also to Post Falls Police Chief Scott Haug for allowing his team to work on a live campus and Rick Richards, CEO of Niach for allowing us to close the campus so the Swat Team would not be impeded during the drill. A very special thanks to Jack Jordon, police volunteer, who played the role of terrorist and Dan Lynch, police chaplain, who played the role of hostage taker. Their presence not only made the exercise more realistic, but more challenging.

The professionalism and skill of the Post Falls Police Department Swat Team were amazing to watch and behold. It's reassuring to know that in an emergency NIACH has such a team of dedicated individuals to call upon. Lieutenant Pat Knight (Commander) and Officer Mark Goodwin (Team Leader) are outstanding examples of what is right with law enforcement and have assembled a team we can all be proud of.

Violence in the workplace can happen anywhere. I would encourage other facility managers (non health care) in the Post Falls area to consider joining forces with the Post Falls Police Department Swat Team by offering their facility for training and increase their facilities readiness and preparedness for any emergency. They are all about making Post Falls a safer and more secure place and we feel fortunate to be a partner.

Craig Mooney is NIACH facilities director and Emergency Preparedness Committee chairman.