ERT Vs MERT - What Does Your Company Need?

By Jim L Serre

Background

Does your company have an employee Emergency Response Team (ERT), an employee Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), or even dedicated Search & Rescue (SAR) personnel in case of an emergency? What does your company need and what are the differences?

Most companies know that they need an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) according to 29 CFR Part 1910.38 - "Emergency Action Plans". And as part of your company's EAP you must include, in part, the following procedures:

• How to report a fire or other emergency
• Emergency evacuation, including type of evacuation and exit route assignments
• How employees who must remain to operate or shut-down critical plant operations evacuate
• How to account for all employees after evacuation
• How to perform rescue or medical duties

Now, your EAPs become more complicated if you have hazardous materials on site when 29 CFR Part 1910.120 - "Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response" is invoked. And should you have chemicals listed in Part 1910.119 "Process Safety Management," at or above the specified threshold quantities on site, the requirements of Part 1910.119(f) - "Operating Procedures" will also apply. Specifically, paragraph (f)(1)(i)(D) - "Emergency shutdown including the conditions under which emergency shutdown is required, and the assignment of shutdown responsibility to qualified operators to ensure that emergency shutdown is executed in a safe and timely manner."

It is inherent in the emergency shutdown of operations involving hazardous materials (HAZMAT) that non-essential employees may need to be evacuated to protect them from potential exposures. However, there are many more common emergency scenarios in and around your office, facility or campus that could result in employee evacuations such as:

• Fire and Smoke
• Vehicle Accident/Fire
• Earthquake
• Power Outage
• Elevator Failure
• Medical Response
• Odor Response
• Communications Outage
• Explosion
• Severe weather
• Active Shooter
• Civil Unrest

Response Team Structure

In order to effectively comply with these emergency plan regulations, companies will require some form of volunteer employee response team. The optimum employee response team structure for managing evacuations, small fires and medical emergencies, depends upon several response team factors including:

• Office configuration (i.e., one floor vs. multiple floors)
• Building configuration (i.e., single vs. multistory)
• Campus configuration (i.e., multiple buildings - close vs. distant proximity)
• Proximity to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) (i.e., rural vs. urban, or onsite)
• Number of employees
• Employee interest in volunteering
• Geography and topography
• Industry standards (based upon historical incidents)
• Training budgets
• Corporate liability philosophy

At the simplest level, you may have the equivalent of "hall monitors" who are designated employees responsible for ensuring that employees in their area are safely and expeditiously evacuated in case of an emergency. These monitors are responsible for accounting for all employees after an evacuation. Such "monitors" could also provide shelter-in-place coordination when events demand. Monitors have the least amount of emergency training.

Next, you may have dedicated SAR teams that are responsible for locating any missing employees after an emergency. Such teams generally have additional training related to rescue methodologies and unique skills related to rescue tools, such as axes, pry bars, ropes, radios, etc.

A higher level team would be an Emergency Response Team. ERTs are generally trained in a variety of skills including CPR, triage, Basic First Aid (BFA), search and rescue, damage assessment, minor fire suppression, securing utilities, crowd control and Incident Command System (ICS) functions and communications. Given the nature of your business, they may additionally require HAZMAT awareness or other specialty training.

A Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) is a term used for the highest level of emergency medical care training for corporate and industry personnel. A MERT is tasked with being first on scene for medical emergencies within a facility or company and providing basic medical care until professional first responders arrive. MERT members can take anywhere from 8 to 48 hours of medical training depending upon the intended scope of their practice.

Companies do not have to provide volunteer employee staffing for all emergency team levels from hall monitors to MERTs. Depending upon the response team factors noted above, you may decide to only have a MERT, whose members function as both and ERT and MERT. Or, you may only have ERT employees. Your optimum response team structure will be based upon the factors listed above as well as historical accident and local emergency data.

Training Options

ERT - An excellent baseline curriculum for ERTs would be FEMA's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program which is currently set at 24 hours. This base curriculum includes the following topics:

1. Disaster Preparedness
2. Fire Safety
3. Disaster Medical Operations - Part 1
4. Disaster Medical Operations - Part 2
5. Light Search & Rescue
6. CERT Organization
7. Disaster Psychology
8. Terrorism Awareness
9. Final Skills Evaluation

The disaster medical operations classes include basics such as personal protective equipment, controlling bleeding, treating basic injuries, splinting fractures and sprains, and triage. However, this baseline content can be expanded over time with routine upgrade training specific to your business and response team factors noted herein. Such upgrade training might include crowd control (during evacuations), managing spontaneous volunteers, internal and external communications, interfacing with professional first responders and HAZMAT awareness.

SAR Team - It is extremely important that these teams receive specific training relative to where they can safely search and which types of rescues they are capable of performing. All too often, inexperienced rescuers rush in and wind up needing to be rescued themselves! The Light SAR training provided in the CERT program is a good initiation to SAR activities; however, more site specific training would be required to ensure their safety in your workplace.

These teams need to understand basic structural integrity issues related to the types of building construction they may search. Knowing the differences between wood construction, brick and mortar, concrete tilt-up, and a steel and concrete building is critical to determining the safety of the structure during or after a destructive event such as a fire, earthquake or severe wind event.

MERT - There are various medical training options for MERTs depending upon the level of support intended by the company and budget constraints. To be clear, all medical training for MERTs is considered "basic life support." As such, the level of instruction provided in such training can vary significantly from 8 hours to 48 hours. The 48 hour training course results in a Medical First Responder designation which is just below an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). It is possible to establish your MERT with some minimum medical training and, as they develop, expand their training to include more complex medical assessments and treatments.

On-going Training and Exercises - Once trained and qualified, your response teams will require regular training in order to maintain the myriad of skills they now possess. For medical teams especially, regular monthly training is critical to keep victim assessment and treatment skills sharp. Annual emergency exercises will also help to maintain employee response skills and identify program weaknesses, which should result in procedural changes and additional employee training. Failure to provide continuing training for these select employees provides a disservice to them and weakens you Emergency Action Plan, opening the company up to regulatory penalties.

Get your emergency response teams trained or develop exercises for their continued readiness http://www.getreadygear.com/training-services.aspx.

Facing Uncertainties In Your Business

By Ieishah N Cover-Edwards

Uncertainty is a significant test for individuals in business and may stand in the way of achieving certain objectives. So, what is a good strategy in dealing with uncertainties in business? Well, predicting the future with any precision is next to impossible, but ignoring it is even worse.

The typical approach is to lay out contingency plans and try to strike a balance between neglecting problems and predicting indeterminate ones. Not an easy task, but doable.

Entrepreneurs possess a special kind of courage. It is the kind of courage you need when you are confronted with many uncertainties as you launch and maintain your business. The ability to assess the uncertainties and then make decisions about how to continue can mean the difference between success and failure.

There are many approaches to this predicament. Here are some basic rules to follow which may help and that every entrepreneur should keep in mind:

· Focus on future uncertainties as well as present problems. Entrepreneurs should not let their immediate issues consume their time without considering what impact present problems will create in the future. Entrepreneurs should always be aware that the potential impact of future actions may disrupt current situations.

· Challenge traditional methods. Some entrepreneurs assume that their product or service will always be relevant to the customer. It is critical that an entrepreneur constantly look for improvement. For every business, whatever is assumed based on the past is likely to be wrong for the future. In any business, you should be cognizant of the trap of believing that future priorities are sustainable based on past performance.

· Overconfidence will make you vulnerable. When you believe you have the winning formula, in reality, future variables will always humble you because sooner or later something fundamental in your business will change. If the variables change, your winning formula must change and entrepreneurs need to adapt accordingly.

The business atmosphere can be complex and entrepreneurs may find themselves challenged with an uncertain future at times. Business owners whose mindset is such that when they track multiple variables and global activities in order to face an uncertain future head-on will be able to implement key success strategies. They will be the ones to survive in our ever-changing economy.

What's most important is that no matter how uncertain the future may appear, you may be able to recognize useful strategies if you change the way you look at things. Instead of looking at situations from a traditional standpoint, broaden your vision. Take some advice from a successful entrepreneur, Steve Jobs and "think differently." Consider the uncertainties in business as tools for growth. Constantly challenge yourself and never settle for mediocrity. Do this and you will discover new and important perspectives may come to mind that will not only accelerate your business but put you light years ahead of your competition.

Ieishah Cover-Edwards offers solutions for new entrepreneurs as well as the experienced home based business owners to improve their lead generating skills. If you're tired of generating leads the hard (and old) way and you're ready to take your home based business to the next level, you'll find the answers you seek athttp://www.EasyMLMHomeBiz.com. Learn how to generate the leads you need to build a legitimate business lightning fast by reading some additional articles published on her blog at http://www.UrGuide2Wealth.com.