In
2 Minutes or Less™
Creating
an Emergency Action Plan Checklist
By
Michael Cendoma, MS, ATC, Director, Sports Medicine Concepts, Inc.
July-August 2002
Sports health care professionals have a very demanding job. Charged with
the daily care, prevention, management, rehabilitation, and reconditioning
of athletic injuries and conditions for multiple sports and sometimes an
overwhelming number of athletes during any given season the days can become
long and arduous. Game days can be exceedingly demanding, but just as exciting;
coming in hours before the athletes to prepare the training room, a big
game under the lights, then remaining hours after the athletes leave to
take care of the injured and clean-up. Day in and day out, season after
season the athletic training room is open. Day in and day out, season after
season you are there whenever coaches and athletes need your expertise,
or are you? If you operate without a thorough, thought out, efficient emergency
action plan you practice under false pretenses and it is only a matter of
time before you are caught unprepared and your unpreparedness may adversely
affect the life of another.
In my experience as a seminar leader for Sports Medicine Concepts' program
Management of Potentially Catastrophic Injuries in Athletics and an emergency
action-planning consultant, I have heard a number of reasons offered for
not having an effective emergency action plan in place. Here are just a
few: 1) I am already too busy and the high school that I work at only contracts
me for a certain number of hours per week. Putting together an emergency
action plan would take too much time and I would not be compensated for
the extra time involved; 2) The school that I work at already has a facility-wide
emergency action plan in place; 3) Our school contracts to have an EMT at
all varsity events and the ambulance station is just a few blocks from my
school. If need be I can call an ambulance and have them respond quickly
enough. All of these are terrible excuses - as are any others offered -
but ones that I am continuously offered to justify why the effort to coordinate
an emergency action plan is not put forth.
As a certified athletic trainer your job is to ensure that everything possible
is done to ensure the safety of the athletes you are employed to protect.
If putting together an emergency action plan would take up too much time
or you would not be appropriately compensated for your effort, you should
reconsider your priorities or your employment setting. If your school already
has a facility wide emergency action plan in place, review the plan to ensure
that it appropriately addresses your concerns, for example does the plan
address football equipment and the injured cervical spine or concussion
injury management guidelines and protocols. If not, consider revising the
plan so that it does address these and other concerns. Finally, it may be
that EMS is able to respond to emergency calls at your facility in a very
short period of time. But consider this. According to the American Heart
Association the chance of survival for an individual in cardiac arrest decreases
10% for every minute that defibrillation is delayed. That means that an
average EMS response time of 6-8 minutes reduces the chance of an arresting
athlete's survival to 20-40%! This is not acceptable.
Participants
in our seminar practice performing critical response techniques
such that they are able to assess, log roll, access the airway,
perform rescue breathing, and administer the first shock from an
automated external defibrillator in 2 minutes or less!™
This is a standard that all of our participants achieve and
you should too. After all we are certified athletic trainers and
we are supposed to be a step above the average trained Good Samaritan.
If the American Heart Association says that an arresting individual
should be defibrillated in 4 minutes or less, certified athletic
trainers should train to do it in half that. It is our job, it is
what we do, and nobody should be able to do it better!
Here is a
quick checklist to help you on your way to developing the type of
emergency action plan that will allow you to reach the goal of 2
minutes or less!™. Following the checklist you will find
10 community-based activities you and your team can perform to increase
awareness and educate your community regarding your efforts and
expertise.
Develop a detailed layout of the entire
athletic complex.
Draw out a detailed map of the gymnasiums, athletic fields, and
grounds. Be sure to include information regarding all access points,
locations of phones, gates, locks, main streets to and from the
facility, etc. Also, indicate the teams and their respective coaches
associated with each area.
Decide on EMS Access Routes.
Use the information on your map to establish the most efficient
EMS access routes. Include input from the local ambulance company.
Keep in mind, fans, weather conditions, and other variables that
may influence which route is most appropriate.
Create a "Dream Team"
On paper, list all health care professionals that would influence
the outcome of an emergency situation at the facility. Include coaches,
local EMS, the school nurse, team physician, ER personnel, assistants,
school officials, and others. Everyone should have a minimum of
first aid and CPR training. Contact officials of one local ambulance
company that can readily serve your facility. Meet with them to
make arrangements for coverage or to be on call. This should be
the company that is specifically contacted when EMS is needed. A
general 911 call is not always the most appropriate response.
Create worst-case scenarios throughout
the facility.
At each location and for each sport create worst-case scenarios.
Work through the scenarios to assign duties to your team members.
Background, training, and expertise of team members should guide
role delineation. Be sure to include who has keys, who will call
EMS, who will carry specific equipment, crowd control responsibilities,
and chain of contact, etc.
Organize a meeting of the minds.
Organize and call a meeting for all those involved in the emergency
action plan. Use this forum to gain insight from team members regarding
the plan and specific responsibilities assigned.
Rewrite the plan.
Based on the information gathered at the meeting, rewrite the emergency
action plan. If possible, have team members with specific duties
and training rewrite their respective sections. Continue the meeting
and rewrite stages until all areas of the plan are solid and all
those involved are comfortable with procedures they are responsible
for.
Publish the emergency action plan.
Provide copies of the entire plan to each team member with their
respective responsibilities highlighted. Keep another copy of the
entire plan in a central office as a reference.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
Prior to the start of each season, arrange practice sessions for
each team member and the coaches associated with the upcoming seasons.
Use this time to review specifics regarding the emergency action
plan, policy changes, procedures, etc.
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10
Community-Based Activities The Sports Medicine Team Can
Use To Inform And Educate Others To Aid In Preventing Injuries
|
| 1. |
Call local
school/athletic officials regarding the inclusion of guidelines
in educational/certification programs for coaches, officials,
and others. |
| 2. |
Conduct
free seminars throughout the community. |
| 3. |
Provide
free programming for youth sports leagues. |
| 4. |
Provide
free programming for parent-teacher associations. |
| 5. |
Ask to
address the local school board to encourage implementation
of prevention guidelines. |
| 6. |
Contact
city or town officials to recommend adoption of accepted guidelines
in all local organized sports activities. |
| 7. |
Make presentations
to other health care professionals throughout the community
and encourage them to implement accepted guidelines. |
| 8. |
Provide
information to local newspapers regarding injury prevention
measures. |
| 9. |
Send pertinent
injury prevention articles to the local hospital and emergency
room for inclusion in medical staff bulletins and community
newsletters. |
| 10. |
Contact
the National Athletic Trainers' Association for injury surveillance
study information and media release suggestions. |
|
|
For More
Information About Sports Medicine Concepts, Inc., their emergency
action planning services or their continuing education seminar
"Management of Potentially Catastrophic Injuries in Athletics"
call 716-455-3753 or visit Sports Medicine Concepts, Inc.,
on the web at www.Sportsmedicineconcepts.com. |
Mr. Cendoma, a certified athletic trainer
since 1991, has dedicated his career to the advancement of management
of potentially catastrophic injuries in athletics. His dedication
stems from a number of early experiences that made him realize that
how we are taught to deal with these injuries in school leaves a
lot of room for error on the field; as well as his desire to ensure
that he is never again involved in a poor on-field management episode.
Mr. Cendoma received his B.S. in athletic training from the University
of Buffalo and his M.S. from Ithaca College. He has vast experience
as an ATC in many settings. He has authored a number of manuscripts
dealing with head and neck injuries, including the course monograph
for Sports Medicine Concepts' seminar "Management of Potentially
Catastrophic Injuries in Athletics", for which he serves as
the seminar leader and curriculum director. Mr. Cendoma is frequently
invited to speak about head and neck injuries at NATA, EATA, and
IATA meetings. Currently he is the Director of Sports Medicine Concepts,
Inc., where he is responsible for the design and development of
the FM Extractor universal athletic helmet facemask removal tool.
In addition, Mr. Cendoma is an Assistant ATC with the University
of Rochester where he is completing his doctoral studies in sports
medicine/athletic training curriculum.
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