Hospital Incident Command System Training for the Southeast/Southeast Central Ohio Region
On Monday and Tuesday this week, the Southeast/Southeast Central Region of the COTS hosted a Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) Train the Trainer course. HICS is based on the Incident Command System (ICS), however, it focuses on healthcare during an emergency. HICS enables hospitals and other healthcare agencies to organize and manage resources, staff and facilities to remain operational during an emergency and to promote the restoration of day-to-day operations during an emergency.
On Monday, a four-hour basic HICS course was provided to the Southeast/Southeast Central Region Hospitals. This course covered the roles and responsibilities of the Incident Commander, the Command Staff, and the General Staff in detail. The Job Action Sheets are also reviewed and provide prompts for actions each team member should consider taking to fulfill their duties to ensure key items aren’t over looked in “heat of the moment” scenarios. Many examples of events are used throughout the course to better understand the roles and responsibilities and how to respond.
The next day, a four-hour Train the Trainer course was provided so hospital and healthcare representatives can go back to their organization and teach the basic HICS course to their staff who may fill a HICS role during an emergency. “Hospitals and healthcare are in a unique situation when responding to events. For hospitals, the event is coming to them and they still need to carry on their everyday services. For the staff at the hospital, especially upper management, they might find themselves in a role or with responsibilities they don’t usually have,” Laura George, Southeast/Southeast Central Regional Emergency Management Specialist & Regional Coalition Coordinator, said.
If you’re interested in education opportunities like this, visit the COTS website or sign up for the new COTS University newsletter by emailing mrose@cotshealth.org.