Scand J Trauma Resus
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Scand J Trauma Resus · Jul 2009
Regional coordination in medical emergencies and major incidents; plan, execute and teach.
Although disasters and major incidents are difficult to predict, the results can be mitigated through planning, training and coordinated management of available resources. Following a fire in a disco in Gothenburg, causing 63 deaths and over 200 casualties, a medical disaster response centre was created. The center was given the task to coordinate risk assessments, disaster planning and training of staff within the region and on an executive level, to be the point of contact (POC) with authority to act as "gold control," i.e. to take immediate strategic command over all medical resources within the region if needed. The aim of this study was to find out if the centre had achieved its tasks by analyzing its activities. ⋯ The data presented in this study indicates that the center had achieved its primary tasks. Such regional organization with executive, planning, teaching and training responsibilities offers possibilities for planning, teaching and training disaster medicine by giving immediate feed-back based on real incidents.