Centre County seems to be far from where many people believe a terrorist attack could happen. Nevertheless, hospital officials are still preparing for the worst.
Jerry Prater, disaster committee chair for Centre Community Hospital, said the hospital has done a lot of work to prepare for the inevitability of such a large-scale catastrophe.
He added that a large catastrophe could be more than just a terrorist attack. Many of the same preparations being done in response to terrorism can aid hospital staff in responding to natural disasters and large accidents.
For example, Prater said several hospital committees were consolidated last July into a disaster committee. The committee aimed to better coordinate efforts to prepare for a terrorist attack and other large disasters.
A representative is also sent to meetings of the regional terrorism task force.
In addition, the hospital has established a mass casualty plan and installed a multi-decontamination unit in case a catastrophe occurs, Prater said.
State officials do not mandate such changes to hospital procedures, said Richard McGarvey, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
"It's pretty hard to mandate for a terrorist attack," McGarvey said.
Instead, he said the department has been working with hospitals throughout the state to improve their communication and coordination with regional counter-terrorism task forces and emergency responders.
Changes are ongoing in the medical education field as well. Tanya Heatwole, curriculum coordinator for the Penn State College of Medicine, said the college has added a lecture class on the subject of bioterrorism for first-year students.
Heatwole said other classes also have been incorporating the issue of terror into their content in hopes of producing a class of medical personnel ready to deal with possible acts of terrorism.
"It is something that we are very aware of and are incorporating as quickly as we can," Heatwole said.
Centre Community Hospital's mass casualty plan covers how the hospital would deal with a large number of patients and a large body count. It also provides procedures for restricting access to the building, he said.
Prater said other areas of the hospital building would be converted into emergency rooms in the event of a disaster. Those rooms will treat people according to injury type to relieve the hospital's main emergency room.
Another key component to the plan is how the hospital will handle what Prater described as the "worried well"-- those people who believe they may have been contaminated by an attack but really may be fine, Prater said. Security personnel would try to screen people showing up to the hospital. Only those with legitimate injuries would be allowed to enter, he said.
The multi-decontamination unit, Prater said, was installed to treat a large number of victims from a chemical attack. The center is simply a large network of showers, he added.
Other plans, such as a smallpox response team, are in the works.
Currently, hospital officials are looking into a survey to see if staff members would volunteer to receive a smallpox vaccination, Prater said. He added that if they can get enough volunteers, then those staff members would constitute a first response group to treat patients in the event of a smallpox outbreak.
McGarvey also said the state health department has been helping hospitals better prepare for biological attacks, in response to anthrax deaths in the last year and the possibility of smallpox outbreaks. The department has been allocating $35 million in federal money earmarked for bioterrorism preparedness to hospitals throughout the state, McGarvey said. The money can be used for training and to buy equipment such as protective gear, he added.
Despite what has already been accomplished, Prater said there is still work to be done. As with all large changes, he added, people must constantly be updated on the newest plans and procedures. "There is a lot of education to be done," Prater said.
