Our February Focus On column references an emergency exercise at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY. In the exercise, doctors, biomeds, and other hospital staff ran through all the necessary steps of dealing with a hospital-wide pandemic flu emergency, from checking patients in, to setting up equipment, to stemming the spread of contamination.

Joint Commission regulations require facilities to undertake regular emergency exercises to test how plans on paper will fare during an actual emergency situation.  

While the staff at Westchester Medical performed well in the drill, there were still some bumps in the road. "There were a couple things, like finding outlets for the equipment and running phone lines to the right places, that until we actually put the physical structures in place, we didn't think about," says Garret Doering, the hospital's director of emergency management.

On the heels of an upcoming Joint Commission conference on effective emergency preparation strategies, we invite you to share your department’s experience with emergency equipment plans. What are some of the strategies your hospital is putting on paper and what are the most efficient ways to test it?