(P1-61) Nursing Education for Disaster Management

Abstract

In Southern California in 2010, there were 76 declared disasters of which the majority were in Southern California, for this reason and at the request of our clinical partners, when West Coast University (WCU) started its nursing program in 2008, it recognized the need to have a course in disaster management. With nursing being the largest of the health professions, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) recognized the need to incorporate disaster nursing in its new Baccalaureate Nursing standards. The Disaster Management course was developed in concert with other parts of the curriculum such as Leadership, Physical Assessment, Critical Care courses to help students focus their assessment and intervention skills to prepare them to be future responders. The disaster management course is delivered in both didactic and hands on format including online Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) modules, disaster drills, guest lecturers and field trips. Students are also introduced to many volunteer opportunities and are trained to be disaster ready once they are needed. Students are excited and ready to volunteer at various organizations before graduation such as the American Red Cross, the Medical Volunteer Program and the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams. Since WCU has new campuses, the students have been instrumental in implementing a new disaster plan for our facilities, including developing flyers, videos and conducting disaster drills. We have received feedback from our clinical partners that our students are better prepared than their current emergency staff in regards to disaster management and to that end we plan to work with our clinical partners to translate our class into an online course so their staff can be trained on disaster management.