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bi-monthly
HPASA newsletter. |
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June 2011
CRITICAL
PROCEDURES IN GUEST MEDICAL EVACUATION
By SATIB Insurance Brokers |
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Most hospitality establishments
have medical emergency contact details available
to guests in their rooms but without appropriate
procedures and policies in place, this information
can have adverse consequences.
Picture this scene
The parents of a two-year old child are
busy unpacking suitcases in the second floor
master bedroom of their plush game reserve
suite, unaware that their active child is
happily climbing the balcony balustrade.
At the sound of their child’s piercing
scream, the mother rushes onto the balcony
and sees her child lying motionless on the
sloping ground eight meters below.
Shouting for her husband to phone a doctor
as she rushes out the door to her child;
her husband dials the medical emergency
number provided in the room information
directory. Cradling his cell phone to
his ear as he hurtles to his family’s
aid, the call is picked up by a highly
trained incident manager at the call centre.
On accessing the guests’ location
and situation, the call is immediately
patched through to a doctor trained in
remote medical prognosis. |
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Remote Medical Prognosis
Using a combination of questioning and video images
sent from the father’s cell phone, the doctor
is able to assess the child’s condition,
who appears to be in a state of altered consciousness
with suspected fractures and internal injuries.
Advice and instructions on how to immobilise the
patient are dispensed, while the command centre
is already dispatching a helicopter to the scene
for air evacuation to an appropriate hospital.
Medical Evacuation Insurance
The scene described above is a common enough occurrence,
assuming that the lodge did indeed have a competent
24-hour medical emergency service to call upon,
but without medical evacuation insurance in place
to provide immediate authorisation and payment
guarantees for air evacuation, the situation may
easily have turned out differently with disastrous
consequences to both the guests and to the lodge
in terms of reputation and potential liability.
What Happens Next?
From a procedural point of view, the scene is
also fraught with errors. At no stage were the
lodge management or front of house staff involved
in the process. What happens when the parents
return to the lodge from the hospital? Who will
be there to console and manage the situation?
Rolling the Dice
How well an incident is handled can often impact
on whether or not an injured party lodges a claim
for compensation.
Think of it like this:
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A 6 represents something bad
– a big money law suit and/or your
business being forced to close; every time
an incident occurs, you have to roll the
dice. |
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Now decide how many dice
you want to roll at one time. |
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- Good crisis management is
like rolling 1 dice.
- Poor management is like rolling 3.
- A string of really bad decisions and some
shocking management is like grabbing a fistful
of 8 or 9 die. |
Even then you might get away with it, but how
often can you keep doing that before a 6 shows
up and you get burnt?
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
People sue because they suffered a loss. Keeping
this loss as small as possible decreases the potential
for a claim and limits its size. But not everyone
who suffers a loss takes formal action. This is
the art of “Incident Management”,
knowing how to maximize the chances of emerging
from a crisis with a satisfied, even if injured,
guest – and no litigation. In order to plot
the lowest risk path through tricky situations,
consider the following advice:
1. Get the right insurer
You “co-defend” with your financial
services provider – or you should –
first make sure you have adequate and appropriate
cover. Make sure you have a specialist who intimately
understands the vagaries of the host-guest relationship
and who provides a high level of support during
and after an incident. It is worth spending a
little bit more on premiums to get the right attitude
and approach from your financial partner.
2. Create the right culture
Value a proactive approach to risk containment
and pass this on to staff. How? Talk about it,
encourage reporting, review incidents constructively,
invest in staff, train them in the Incident Command
System and related skills, create better than
average emergency response plans and get expert
consultants to guide you in this. Prepare well,
be a team, run practice sessions and have everyone
know their roles. Show them you value this and
they will too.
3. Offload to professionals
Make sure you or your insurer makes financial
and logistical provision to get specialists on
the case as soon as it occurs – transfer
decision making and attendant liability as soon
as is possible.
4. Manage people, not just incidents
Remember that people sue, not injuries. This is
more than buying dinner afterwards and avoiding
admitting guilt. Contain staff emotions, take
charge calmly, work well as a team, interact with
guests face to face, maintain a high presence
in the first 24 hours, follow up correctly, communicate
skillfully and via correct channels, be careful
with the media, know the character types that
raise red flags and always be the consummate professional.
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| For
more information
contact SATIB24
Crisis Call on 0861
SATIB 4U or email
www.satib.co.za |
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