Locking up before you go: Security and continued operations amid an evacuation

Getting your patients and staff out of harm’s way is always the number one priority during an evacuation, and it might not always be practical to do a step-by-step lockdown of your facility or take all the valuables you need. But if you can do this without putting anyone needlessly at risk, you should. Just because one thing is the top priority doesn’t mean it’s the only priority. Leaving those questions to be decided in the moment is how harm and mistakes occur, says Kurt Patton, MS, RPh, pharmacist, founder of Patton Healthcare Consulting and a former director of accreditation services for The Joint Commission (TJC).

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