Movie helps teach OR staff how to evacuate
Staff also hold maps and practice routes
Orientation for new employees was a particular concern at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas because staff could be clueless about evacuation until the next fire drill rolled around, says Richard E. Gilder, RN, BSN, CNOR, BCNI, a former clinical nurse there, now a perioperative consultant and owner of The Gilder Co., a perioperative consulting firm in Dallas.
To cover that gap, he used a video camera to create a simple video that showed staff all the evacuation routes. Gilder walked the evacuation routes with the camera and then used a software program to add the same floor plans used on the maps. The screen alternated between the floor plan, with animated arrows showing the route, and then the footage of that area of the actual surgical department.
All employees were required to view the 20-minute video once a year. Gilder knew the effort had been successful when he overheard a head orderly talking to a new orderly in a break area. The supervisor handed the new employee a copy of the master evacuation map and told him his life might depend on it. He instructed the new employee to take the map and walk all the routes until he felt familiar with them, and then return the map.
"The maps and the video cost very little, but I saw that it had a significant impact," he says. "People actually understood that they needed to study this, that it wasn't just some indecipherable map the hospital was required to put up."
Encourage use of maps
Always remember that people learn better by doing, Gilder suggests. Even the very best fire evacuation plan can be useless in a real emergency if people haven't actually learned what they're supposed to do.
Since active participation is a key to learning evacuation routes, Gilder struck on an important feature when created new evacuation maps for the surgical department of Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas: He mounted the maps on the wall with Velcro so they could be removed and replaced easily. Staff members were encouraged to take down the map and use it to walk the evacuation route for practice. New employees, in particular, routinely were handed the map and told to go walk all the routes and replace the map when they were done.
"The maps were designed to be utilitarian, something you could take down and study," Gilder says. "And in the event of an emergency, you could even snatch it off the wall and use it to guide you out of whatever room you're in at the time."
Gilder also had another idea that he didn't get to implement before leaving the hospital. To encourage staff to study the maps, he suggests making a game of it. You could hide a small gift certificate for the facility gift shop or a movie pass behind the maps at random just to encourage people to look at them.
"I guarantee I could raise employee awareness of exactly where every single emergency evacuation sign was located by putting a $10 gift certificate on the back of a different map in a different location each month," he says. "That's $120 a year to improve fire safety and save lives."
Sources
For more information, contact:
- Richard E. Gilder, RN, BSN, CNOR, BCNI, The Gilder Co., 13318 Mount Castle, Dallas, TX 75234. Telephone: (972) 241-7934. E-mail: [email protected].
- Paula Graling, RN, MSN, CNOR, CNS, Clinical Nurse Specialist of Perioperative Services, Inova Fairfax Hospital, 3300 Gallows Road, Falls Church, VA 22042. Telephone: (703) 776-2387. E-mail: [email protected].
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