Technology Provides Critical Support in Mass Shooting Response
Last July, after 12 movie goers were shot dead and dozens wounded by a gunman at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises ” in Colorado, 23 victims – the largest contingent of wounded – were taken to the University of Colorado Hospital.
While years of regularly scheduled drills in the years after the infamous Columbine shooting had prepared staff for swift action in the face of an unforeseen medical tragedy, the hospital also credits its automated patient flow technology system with making possible their highly coordinated and successful treatment of the victims who arrived that night.
Paige Patterson, RN, a relief hospital manager at University of Colorado Hospital, recounted the event at a recent TeleTracking Technologies conference. She described the initial reactions of shock and paralysis among the staff as multiple patients arrived at the same time. The hospital activated its hospital-wide casualty response, but Patterson notes that even with the training they had received, the crush of victims with head, back, torso and leg wounds would have still been overwhelming without the help of an automated, comprehensive patient-flow system.
In addition to offering immediate, real-time data on capacity, that system made it possible for University of Colorado Hospital personnel to deploy patient placement indicators (PPIs), giving staff the ability to quickly register the Aurora shooting victims under a single code — “Disaster.” This attribute stayed with each of the Aurora patients throughout their stay and wherever they went. Staff members were able to treat the patients with special compassion as well as assemble patient spreadsheets on the aggregation, “helping everyone involved in this process,” Patterson said. She also gives credit to tech support, which answered her 4 a.m. call that night to help activate the specific details needed.
All patients were suffering from penetrating gunshot wounds, many to the abdomen or chest, and needed to get to the operating room quickly in order to survive. All patients needed blood, and many had perforated and collapsed lungs that needed to be rapidly expanded. Many were unable to breathe on their own.
Patterson notes that the morning after the shooting, staff realized how important it was to have a real-time automation patient flow system in place.
“What it’s specifically changed [since Columbine] is not necessarily triage,” said Richard Zane, MD, University of Colorado chief of Emergency Medicine, “but that there is the capacity and the preparedness for mass-casualty care. It’s now part of vernacular of every hospital and every emergency department. Initial local resources were overwhelmed. There’s no question the level of preparedness saved lives.”
About TeleTracking
For more than two decades, TeleTracking Technologies, the world leader in automated patient flow, has applied proven principles of logistics management to hospitals and health systems to enhance patient care, improve financial performance and gain competitive advantage. Its industry-leading software and consulting services create an enterprise-wide platform to reduce overcrowding, cut costs, generate revenue, fight the spread of infection, manage assets, accelerate patient transfers and provide a wealth of data for continual operational improvement and business development. It provides process planning and patient flow redesign through its consulting division, Avanti Patient Flow Services, and real-time asset and patient tracking through its TeleTracking RTLS Division.