Podcast: Disaster Preparedness with an Emergency Physician

Residents of rural or underserved areas can be more vulnerable to the effects of a disaster for a number of reasons.

Learn more about the impact disaster emergencies can have on smaller communities in a podcast with Toree McGowan, an Emergency Physician in rural Oregon.

In this podcast, McGowan points out that many rural communities are too remote from lifesaving services like trauma centers and lack certain resources, lowering their capacity to battle the effects of a disaster. During a disaster event, these conditions can put the lives of many rural Americans at risk. However, when disasters do strike, rural communities—and healthcare facilities—are not completely helpless. While disasters take on many forms and come with their own unique challenges, McGowan says that preparedness is a key factor to surviving these events and mitigating loss.

In this episode of Health IT on the Record, McGowan discusses disaster preparedness tips like emergency kits or “go bags.” She also shares from her professional experience running mass casualty response exercises and how they helped her rural emergency department manage a disaster situation with speed and efficiency. Listen below for the full story!