Emergency Preparedness
Emergency Plans
Certain clients are identified as being at greater risk requiring emergency services. For example, clients who are cognitively impaired or suffering from paralysis. The guidelines below are in place in order to give employees direction in the event of an emergency, and also to identify community resources available during periods of crisis.
Emergency telephone numbers for fire, hospital, police, ambulance, and poison control will be provided on the Emergency Plan left in the clients’ home after assessment.
In the event of an emergency caused by weather or other natural disaster (earthquake, tornado, blizzard, etc.) employees must evaluate the safety of travel from their home and make a judgment as to whether they can safely drive to a scheduled case. Employees will be expected to report to work unless they have notified the office otherwise.
In the event of such an emergency, clients and/or emergency contact individuals are instructed by the office that they must provide for the client’s needs until emergency conditions have ended. Clients with emergency needs that cannot be met in the home setting will be referred to the nearest emergency room.
Emergency Procedures
The following procedure will be utilized in order to coordinate with field staff during potential emergencies
All employees working shifts that may be affected should be contacted by an administrative employee to determine if the employee feels that travel to their client’s home is safe.
If the employee determines that travel is unsafe due to the distance from the employee’s home, the administrator should call other employees living closer to the client.
If no alternate employee is found, the client and their emergency contact(s) are contacted.
The client/emergency contact should be informed that the employee will be unable to work and that the assistance of the emergency contact, other family, or other friends will be required until conditions improve.
In the rare event that no emergency contact is available, and the client is unable to be left alone, the administrator may have to pull employees off other clients who can be left alone In the event of a life threatening emergency, the home care staff will:
Make reasonable effort to protect or assist the client if they are in danger.
Contact appropriate emergency help and follow instructions given by emergency personnel.
Activate EMS and, if CPR certified, initiate CPR to restore/maintain a client’s breathing and heartbeat.
Control any heavy bleeding.
Treat any poisoning of a client with input from the poison control center.
Receive instruction from emergency personnel as to preventing or reducing client shock.
Continue to assess the client carefully until help arrives.
Once the client is out of immediate danger, contact the office to inform them of the situation and the action taken.
Document in writing all appropriate actions and incidents.
The office personnel will then notify the client’s family and any other relevant emergency contacts that are listed.
ComForCare cannot be responsible for any inability to contact family members and/or other emergency contacts due to those individuals’ failure to provide updated contact information to ComForCare on a regular basis.
These stations will be utilized to communicate the emergency plan:
The designated radio stations for this office are: 93.1FM, 90.1FM
The designated TV station for this office is: WTHR Channel 13