​A Florida hospital that had recently "ramped up" its preparation for an active shooter scenario faced the real thing after a shooter killed 17 people at a nearby high school, according to a February 16, 2018, article in the Miami Herald. The hospital had recently run a drill in which all available surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other medical staff were called in to set up trauma bays and receive patients with gunshot wounds. Following the shooting at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, 16 people were treated at the hospital, including the shooter. Two of the 15 victims transported to the hospital died, the article said. "We are lucky that [staff] were prepared," said the hospital system's chief executive officer (CEO), noting that the wounds they treated were what the hospital staff had been expecting. Doctors in the emergency department (ED) had about 30 minutes after the code green sounded, which indicates a mass casualty, and the patients began arriving. Fortunately, the CEO said, the students did not arrive all at once, which "allowed more of a metered kind response . . . which is better for our patients." He added that, "we can't predict when the next mass casualty will occur but we're always trying to stay ahead of the curve and learning." Another nearby hospital treated seven victims, all of whom had been discharged or were in fair condition by the next morning, according to a February 15, 2018, article by WLRN. The hospital had received patients from a mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale Airport in January 2017. "We are a Level One trauma center. We need to continue to [drill for] this," the hospital's ED director said. "We hope that we don't see this again. But it can happen." A February 15, 2018, article in USA Today noted that staff at the hospitals learned lessons from the response at Las Vegas hospitals after the shooting at a concert that left 58 dead in October 2017. (See HRC Alerts, October 3, 2017: How Las Vegas Hospitals Handled the Deadliest Mass Shooting in Modern U.S. History.)

HRC Recommends: Healthcare organizations must be prepared to respond to mass casualty and active shooter events that may occur in the community as well as those that may occur on their own campuses. Organizations should examine how effectively their own all-hazards emergency plans might respond to such events, develop an appendix for these particular events if they do not already have one, and consider their potential role in educating and training the public. Risk managers may wish to review the Hartford Consensus III and Hartford Consensus IV reports, which discuss strategies to aid preparation for active shooter and intentional mass casualty events.