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Preparedness in Long-Term Care: A Novel Approach to Address Gaps in Evacuation Tracking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2016

Emilie Y Prot  and
Bruce Clements
Emilie Y Prot*
Affiliation:
Department of Preventive Medicine, Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas
Bruce Clements
Affiliation:
Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Section, Texas Department of State Health Services, Division for Regional and Local Health Services, Austin, Texas
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Emilie Y. Prot, DO, Department of Preventive Medicine, Texas Department of State Health Services, 1100W 49th Street, MAIL CODE 1864, PO Box 149347, Austin, TX 787149347 (e-mail: eprot@alumni.nd.edu).
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Abstract

With an aging population, the number of elderly individuals residing in long-term care (LTC) facilities will continue to grow and pose unique challenges to disaster preparedness and response. With this rapidly growing vulnerable population, it becomes imperative to identify enhanced and novel preparedness strategies and measures. LTC residents not only have complicated medical needs, including the timing of dispensing multiple medications, but frequently have cognitive and mobility deficits as well. In nearly every major disaster, elderly populations have suffered disproportionate morbidity and mortality. This is often due to elderly evacuees getting overlooked in the chaos of an initial response. Instituting measures to rapidly recognize this population in a crowd during an evacuation will reduce their risk. This commentary reviews the LTC facility evacuation challenges of the 2013 explosion of the West Fertilizer Company plant in West, Texas, and offers a novel solution of mandating the wearing of pink vests by all nursing home residents in case of an evacuation. The pink vests quickly alert disaster rescue and response workers of LTC residents with special needs. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:28–30)

Keywords

disaster planningdelivery of health caredisaster medicineemergency preparedness
Type
Commentaries
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 28 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2016 

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References

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