A Las Vegas Hospital is under heavy criticism and could be fined for a misguided terrorism training exercise. In the scenario, unaware and panicked nurses, doctors and other employees were herded into a break room by an armed intruder, leaving critically ill patients unattended. The hospital’s COO told state investigators that the three employees who cooked up the exercise failed to tell administrators or anyone in the intensive care unit. Two of the employees involved in planning the drill were suspended and the security director was terminated.

STORY LINK: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/03/drill-left-staff-fearing-lives/

You see someone being taken hostage. Should you:

A) Assume it is a real event.

B) Assume it is an exercise.

C) Assume you are seeing a movie being made.

D) Assume you are next.

If you don’t know what is happening, you will react as in A) and D) above. Unless it was a real hostage situation, no good can come from that. Exercises need to be planned, vetted, coordinated, and communicated.

Well, the employees did complain about previous drills being not realistic...

"Hostage taker" is lucky someone didn't lay a smackdown on him.

I've been in this type of event, both as a bad guy and as a good guy. Much more fun to be a baddy TBH. We were all on the same sheet of music, surrounding people were warned and/or recruited for roles. Even then, we had "umpires" in full uniform stationed around to tell people what went on.

Still there are failures. Most notably, a police officer shot two soldiers going through SF training, not knowing they were playacting, and they didn't know he wasn't playacting. A tragedy which caused several lawsuits and many rules and procedures being changed.

The best laid plans... and it's even worse when you plan and don't tell anyone.

Test exercises have great value. They can be a learning experience for all involved. Weaknesses and breakdowns are identified in advance. Obviously, this example demonstrates the failure of communication. If you surprise people, whether employees or the public, problems will occur. Exercises need to be documented and planned.

Also, anyone looking for a Director of Security position at a hospital in LV? The article links back to the job posting

http://www.recruitingnevada.com/jobposting.aspx?ID=25c590d8-bc8c-442a-8e19-def31e386728

Of all the departments in the hospital, why did they hit Intensive Care, where the sickest people are?

If that chain is anything like the Providence one, they will rehire the person they fired, and give him a promotion and raise.

The local Providence chain hospital near me enacted a disaster drill that involved the hospital, fire department and law enforcement. The employees were warned but the neighborhood wasn't, and they started a fair panic. They now advertise in the newspaper ahead of time.

Dumb.

Sue

I went back and completed the article, as I have some business interests in the HC market. I would suggest the reporter was a little bit under informed in choosing the words "terrorism drills", as the more probable likelihood would better fit under "workplace violence". That being said, the ICU is probably a "higher potential drama" department than say the cardiovascular outpatient area, where rival gang bangers get to be treated side by side, interspersed with other end of life scenarios.

What is interesting is the COO tossed the Security director under the bus almost as quickly as he would have tossed the Security Director under the bus if a law suit emerged that was built around an incident that illustrated a lack of drilling as the root cause of a poor incident outcome.

That was a Very Lucky Bad Guy & Hospital!What if there were people present ,of whom had the Right to Carry?

Hopefully they would be smart enough to hold their fire. I can't imagine ICU patients would do well if gunfire started exploding outside their room. Just what you need - an entire unit that suddendly has a simultaneous heart attack.

A scare would harm the pts less than being shot in their beds! If I was armed in that situations I'd readily assess that I was surrounded by the most vulnerable people imaginable. Would you not be spurred to immediate action? Assuming of course that you believed you were in genuine peril?

Going back to the "accountability" aspect, it would be interesting to hear the Security Directors version of the story.
The HC industry is pretty specific in its requirements for preventing workplace violence:

http://www.jointcommission.org/SentinelEvents/SentinelEventAlert/sea_45.htm

My guess is 30% compliance from about 80% of the HC facilities would be the norm!

I wonder if the SD was trying to do a DIY incident preparedness drill since the same administrator who dumped him didn't give him any budget to hire some professional training and advice on how to properly run a critical incident exercise.