Development of an evacuation tool to facilitate disaster preparedness: Use in a planned evacuation to support a hospital move

Objectives Our institution relocated to a new facility 3.5 miles from our original location in Chicago on June 9, 2012. We describe the tools we developed to prepare, execute, and manage our evacuation and relocation. Methods Tools developed for the planned evacuation included the following: Level of acuity and team composition classification, patient departure checklist, evacuation handoff tool, and a patient tracking system within the electronic health record. Incident Command structure was utilized. Results Monthly census tracking exercises were held beginning 12 months before the evacuation. Simulation drills began 6 months before the evacuation. The entire evacuation took less than 14 hours and there were no safety issues. A total of 127 patients were transported to the new facility: 45 patients were moved via the Neonatal/Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team, and the rest were moved with various team configurations. Conclusion Documents developed for a planned evacuation can be used for any planned or unplanned evacuation. We believe the tools we used to prepare, execute, and manage our evacuation and relocation would assist any health care facility to be better prepared to safely and efficiently evacuate patients in the event of a disaster, or to create surge capacity, and relocate them to another facility.