Providence Swedish leads World Cup preparation efforts in Seattle with realistic, full-scale, patient surge drills
The drills ahead of the World Cup events in Seattle allowed Providence Swedish hospitals to test our systems while caring for a surge of patients in a mass emergency.
Providence Swedish is committed to being ready to care for our community in any large emergency – especially during World Cup. To help prepare our downtown campuses for any kind of patient-surge event, Providence Swedish held two full-scale emergency drills at Swedish Cherry Hill and Swedish First Hill in May. 
In addition to participation by clinical and operational team members with Providence Swedish, local partner organizations including Seattle Fire Department, Medic One, American Medical Response, Seattle University College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Disaster Medical Coordination Center at Harborview, and Northwest Healthcare Response Network helped make these drills as real and successful as possible.
An estimated 120 volunteers, including community members and off-shift caregivers, in addition to emergency medical service (EMS) volunteers, acted in roles of patients and family members, media, first responders, and more.
Volunteer ‘patients’ were covered in moulage (realistic makeup and props used to imitate injuries) by a community non-profit partner organization called Moulage Mayhem. The drill started with these patients at the outdoor ‘ground zero’ area. Seattle Fire, Medic One, and AMR did initial triage of volunteers and the loading of simulated patients into
ambulances before transporting them to the Providence Swedish emergency departments (EDs). Ambulances arrived at Swedish EDs, where the simulated patients, as well as ‘walking wounded’, were taken into the hospital for further examination and care.
These drills allowed our hospitals to test our systems and find areas to improve in caring for a surge of patients, while care to our real patients was not impacted.
We’re thankful to our volunteers and community partners for helping us make these drills a success, as well as helping us strengthen our emergency plans. No matter what, our dedication to caring for our community is our top priority.
About Providence Swedish
Providence Swedish has served the Puget Sound region since the first Providence hospital opened in Seattle in 1877 and the first Swedish hospital opened in 1910. The two organizations affiliated in 2012 and today comprise the largest health care delivery system in Western Washington, with 24,000 caregivers, eight hospitals and 244 clinics throughout Western Washington – from Everett to Centralia. A not-for-profit family of organizations, Providence Swedish provides more than $545 million in community benefit in the Puget Sound region each year. The health system offers a comprehensive range of services and specialty and subspecialty care in a number of clinical areas, including cancer, cardiovascular health, neurosciences, orthopedics, digestive health and women’s and children’s care. For more information, visit providence.org/swedish.