Tuesday, October 30, 2007

mass vaccination drill exceeds expectations

mass vaccination drill exceeds expectationsfrom arizona republic: Chandler Regional Medical Center's flu shot drill Saturday was a hit with residents and considered a success by officials testing the hospital's ability to respond to a bioterror or other mass medical emergency.

Cars began lining up for the free drive-though vaccinations as early as 6 a.m. even though the start time wasn't scheduled until 7:30 a.m., said hospital spokeswoman Kimberly Day.

The clinic included 100 hospital personnel and 60 city employees, including police in full tactical gear who, in a real emergency, likely would be required to maintain order.

"They treated this like it was a real scenario so they dressed up in their gear," Day said.

The hospital administered 1,266 flu vaccine doses through 11 a.m., going beyond the scheduled 1,000 shots planned because of strong demand.

Day said lessons learned were to add more screeners farther back in the line and have hospital staff show up earlier to deal with early birds.

"Otherwise the whole drill went extremely smoothly," she said.

Gilbert Mercy Medical Center will have a similar free drive-though clinic from 8-11 a.m. Nov. 10 but it won't include a police drill.


flashback: 1,000 free flu shots to be given in 3 hours for drill

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