Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Dec 2010
Survey of New York veterinarians to assess needs for public health preparedness training.
Because most bioterrorist disease agents are zoonotic, veterinarians are important partners in preparedness. New York State is a prime port of entry and has a network of health and emergency management agencies for response. However, knowledge and participation by veterinarians has not yet been assessed. ⋯ Inducements, such as earning continuing education credits, or the development of active networks of preparedness organizations, state and local health departments, and veterinary schools are needed to deliver emergency preparedness training and information efficiently to veterinarians.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Oct 2010
Hospital referral patterns: how emergency medical care is accessed in a disaster.
A prevalent assumption in hospital emergency preparedness planning is that patient arrival from a disaster scene will occur through a coordinated system of patient distribution based on the number of victims, capabilities of the receiving hospitals, and the nature and severity of illness or injury. In spite of the strength of the emergency medical services system, case reports in the literature and major incident after-action reports have shown that most patients who present at a health care facility after a disaster or other major emergency do not necessarily arrive via ambulance. If these reports of arrival of patients outside an organized emergency medical services system are accurate, then hospitals should be planning differently for the impact of an unorganized influx of patients on the health care system. Hospitals need to consider alternative patterns of patient referral, including the mass convergence of self-referred patients, when performing major incident planning. ⋯ Hospitals should evaluate their emergency plans to consider the implications of alternate referral patterns of patients during a disaster. Additional consideration should be given to mass triage, site security, and the potential need for decontamination after a major incident.
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2010
Emergency preparedness for residency/fellowship programs: lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina and applied during Hurricane Ike.
When it struck the US Gulf Coast in 2005, Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted many graduate medical education residency/fellowship programs in the region and the training of hundreds of residents/fellows. Despite the work of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in responding to this natural disaster and facilitating communication and transfer of residents/fellows to other unaffected training programs, the storm exposed the gaps in the existing system. ⋯ These policies were instrumental in the rapid relocation of 597 residents/fellows from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston after the landfall of Hurricane Ike in September 2008. As a further accommodation to affected trainees, medical certification boards should be as flexible as possible in waiving continuity requirements in the event of a disaster that affects residency/fellowship programs.