Fire drills and tornado drills have very set structures and safety points that can become muscle memory for many staff and students. When it comes to medical emergencies on campus, no two emergencies will ever be the same so no two emergency drills should be the same. While that can seem like a daunting idea to prepare for anything, Med-E Ready can prepare any school to respond to any medical emergency in small, actionable steps – including drill planning.
Every drill should have these questions answered before it starts:
- What is the medical emergency being addressed?
- As there are many emergencies that can happen on campus, defining the medical issue to address in the drill is important. If you haven’t already, running a drill for sudden cardiac arrest should be one the first drills run on your road to medical emergency preparedness.
- Who will be involved in the drill?
- While you should run a drill during a typical school day with full staff and students on campus, that is not always needed for an effective drill.
- Your full medical emergency response team should be present for any drill that you run. Alternates would also be great additions for small team drills.
- A timekeeper and evaluator who is not part of the response team should be present to keep track of the timing and to follow along any task checklist that your team is using (our workbook has a great one!)
- If able, get local EMS or other first responders to be on hand for a drill as well.
- How long should the drill take?
- While the actual drill itself should not take a long time, preparation and debriefs can take up substantial time so ensure you have at least two hours with your response team.
Med-E Ready has great resources for running a drill on your campus. Not ready for a drill? The program will help you create the plans and protocols needed to have a successful drill and emergency response on your campus.
