The Doctor Will See You At The Next Window; Drive-Through Pandemic Exercise Was First In Nation

A couple of months ago, Stanford Hospital had a preview of what a real pandemic might look like: hundreds of people, fearing they might be sick with the H1N1 virus, showed up at the emergency department looking for help. Hospital officials scrambled fast, converting some space over night into an infection-controlled triage area.

On Friday morning, Stanford Hospital tested something that might one day be the standard for how all hospitals respond when thousands might need care at the height of pandemic-a car drive-through triage and care system to keep people from infecting each other and to care for them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“It’s a fantastic idea,” said emergency medicine physician Milana Boukhman, as she waited for another volunteer “sick” person to arrive at her treatment station, one of several set up in a parking garage near the Hospital. “One of the biggest issues in a pandemic is cross-contamination. Cars are self-contained contamination units. And this works if you have limited resources, too.”

The system tested Friday, with 40 patients and 50 health care providers, was simple. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, evaluators and observers hovered around a series of tables where patients were first registered, then evaluated, then treated and then discharged The observers-health care and emergency preparedness professionals-gathered data that will be sent on to the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control for evaluation and review.

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