ASHE Emergency Management and Preparedness 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which utility system is classified as 'Essential Electrical System' branch in NFPA 99 for healthcare facilities?
- Normal power, critical branch, and equipment branch
- Life safety branch, critical branch, and equipment branch (Correct answer)
- Emergency branch, backup branch, and utility branch
- Primary branch, secondary branch, and tertiary branch
Correct answer: Life safety branch, critical branch, and equipment branch
NFPA 99 defines the Essential Electrical System as consisting of the life safety branch, critical branch, and equipment branch fed from emergency power.
Question 2: In the context of healthcare facility emergency management, what does 'RACE' stand for?
- Remove, Activate, Contain, Extinguish/Evacuate (Correct answer)
- Respond, Assess, Contain, Evacuate
- Rescue, Alarm, Confine, Extinguish
- Remove, Alert, Call, Exit
Correct answer: Remove, Activate, Contain, Extinguish/Evacuate
RACE stands for Remove patients from danger, Activate the alarm, Contain the fire by closing doors, and Extinguish/Evacuate — the standard fire response protocol.
Question 3: When a healthcare facility activates its Emergency Operations Plan, the HICS structure places overall command authority with which role?
- Incident Commander (Correct answer)
- Safety Officer
- Operations Section Chief
- Medical Staff Director
Correct answer: Incident Commander
Under HICS, the Incident Commander holds overall authority and accountability for the incident response, sitting atop the command structure.
Question 4: A healthcare facility experiencing a loss of normal utility power must transfer to emergency power within what maximum time frame per NFPA 99?
- 5 seconds
- 10 seconds (Correct answer)
- 15 seconds
- 30 seconds
Correct answer: 10 seconds
NFPA 99 requires the essential electrical system to restore power within 10 seconds of normal power failure for critical healthcare applications.
Question 5: Which federal agency provides the Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 used as a planning framework by healthcare facilities?
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (Correct answer)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- The Joint Commission (TJC)
Correct answer: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
FEMA publishes CPG 101, which provides guidance for developing emergency operations plans and is widely used as a planning framework by healthcare facilities.
Question 6: What term describes the process of sorting patients by injury severity during a mass casualty incident to prioritize treatment?
- Decontamination
- Triage (Correct answer)
- Surge capacity
- Incident staging
Correct answer: Triage
Triage is the systematic process of sorting patients by the severity of their injuries to prioritize care when resources are limited during a mass casualty incident.
Question 7: Which phase of emergency management focuses on activities taken AFTER a disaster to restore normal operations and services?
- Mitigation
- Preparedness
- Response
- Recovery (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Recovery
The Recovery phase encompasses all activities taken after a disaster to restore the facility to normal operations, including repairs, rebuilding, and restoration of services.
ASHE Emergency Management and Preparedness 2
Which utility system is classified as 'Essential Electrical System' branch in NFPA 99 for healthcare facilities?