Surge Sort and Support at Homestead Hospital

Well not exactly at Homestead Hospital. Homestead Hospital is about to celebrate the move to the big and beautiful new facility so Homestead Hospital met us at the  First National Bank Building near the hospital for a wonderfully interactive installment of Surge Sort and Support.

The day's award for resilience goes to Raul who is so dedicated to his personal and professional preparedness that he attended Surge, Sort and Support after working all night as a nursing supervisor.

Keeping "Banker's Hours" allowed us as a teaching team the luxury of beginning our  training at 9:30am rather than 8:30am. A day packed with information meant we expected to end at 5:30pm rather than 4:30, but the energized attendees kept our pace energized and kept us enthralled in the Baptist Homestead Hospital experience.

It was gratifying to see veterans of Hurricane Andrew and other more contemporary disasters taking notes on such concepts as Support Centers, Family Centers and Continuous Integrated Triage.

Of particular interest was the concept of using the Family Center as a "Reunification and Discharge Center." In this model, not only is a large proportion of the surge diverted to a location outside the secure decon envelop of the hospital. This model also utilizes this location as a place to reunite patients with friends and family providing an opportunity to provide patient education in the presence of the patient's support system. Studies on aftercare patient education has long shown that education combined with simultaneous family education results in the highest degree of patient compliance and success.

Dr. Shultz and I throughly enjoyed our day with the team from Homestead Hospital. Thank you for the opportunity to share this time with you.