Medical Emergency Drills: An Essential Component of Inpatient Psychiatric Care

AIMS: At Farmfield Hospital, medical emergency drills are conducted monthly, as well as at all other Elysium Healthcare sites. Managing medical emergencies is an expected component of inpatient care, though without regular practice of Immediate Life Support (ILS) skills they can degrade rapidly. We propose that medical emergency drills should be considered an essential component of inpatient care, and explore how we have used them to create targeted teaching and to build skills after significant events. METHODS: We reviewed all medical emergency drills at Farmfield Hospital over the previous 12 months, looking through standardised event reports and feedback on quality and timing of response. We explore and compare qualitative feedback from involved staff members, and detail methods by which medical emergency drills can be used to create targeted teaching and training where skill gaps are noted. RESULTS: Staff fed back that these drills are key to building their confidence in managing medical emergencies. Core reports include that without these drills, for some staff the only regular practice would be at annual ILS recertification, and reports that they would feel considerably less confident to manage medical emergencies without regular practice and feedback. We use a case study exploring human factors and leadership skills being highlighted in one emergency drill as needing improvement, and how through targeted training and reassessment through subsequent drills we improved this skill gap and enabled staff to become more confident leaders in emergency situations as measured by direct feedback and assessment in subsequent drills. CONCLUSION: Medical emergency drills are not currently standard practice across psychiatric inpatient services, and this creates several challenges. While ILS recertification is annual, these are perishable skills, and without regular practice confidence falls rapidly. Moreover, specific skill gaps such as leadership or even technical competencies such as familiarity with specific emergency equipment may go unnoticed until needed in a live medical emergency call. Organising these drills does not require a significant time investment, and we have found the increase in quality of response and staff confidence in managing emergencies makes these drills an essential part of our standard practice. We propose a simple structure for drill design and assessment as part of an ongoing Quality Improvement architecture.