Lessons Learned from Counter-terrorism Drill

Clockwise from top: Wearing protective garb, nurses wait outside the decontamination shower. An ER nurse helps a colleague don protective clothing. A police officer guards the ER. An actor playing a victim in the drill is transported on a gurney.

UW Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, and several other Puget Sound area hospitals were among local participants in the five-day, national counter-terrorism drill.

Approximately 150 actors played injured patients, and 92 of these individuals were seen at local hospitals. 

Among the disaster responses triggered at UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center were command center operations; internal and interagency communications; triage, radiation detection and decontamination; provider, patient and visitor safety; psychological, surgical and minor injury care; admission and discharge coordination; media relations; translator services; supply delivery; vehicle traffic flow; facility lockdown; and many other support efforts.

According to Shirley Tainter, nurse manager of the Emergency Department at UW Medical Center, overall the response went well.

"It was the first time our procedures for radiation detection and decontamination were tested," Tainter said. "We had a good response from Environmental Health and Safety and Nuclear Medicine. They brought equipment to scan arriving victims and determine their level of contamination. This allowed Emergency Department staff to appropriately decontaminate victims and begin treatment of those not contaminated."

One area identified for improvement was initial communication between disaster scene control and hospital control personnel immediately after the staged attack. However, once the emergency medical response was under way, the command center was able to assign the actors playing victims efficiently to area hospitals and to track these patients on a regional web site.

In future drills, Tainter would like to see a greater volume of patient/actors delivered to the hospitals to more fully test the disaster response system. She mentioned an important lesson learned was that procedures should be developed for dealing with radiation-contaminated cars that could arrive bringing patients.

According to Tainter, "We have a plan within the hospital to respond to mass casualty incidents, and we have done a lot of work and training over the past couple of years. We are all now much more comfortable with our response and know what we are supposed to do."

The cost of the five-day drill nationwide was approximately $16 million. An estimated 85,000 people participated from more than 100 federal, state and local agencies. The exercise was the second in a congressionally mandated series held to troubleshoot and improve the nation’s ability to respond to terrorist attacks.