Essay On Mass Casuality

Medical care is provided to individuals that have been injured during war and natural disasters by members of the civilian work force and the military. Trauma medical care has advanced from the experiences that was gained by caring for these casualties. The purpose of this paper is to explain the connection that this author, a member of the Alabama Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear, and High-yield Explosive (CBRNE) Enhanced Response Force Package (CERFP), has to the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH).

The impact of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in August 2005 had catastrophic implications to the healthcare infrastructure in portions of coastal and southern Mississippi, including hospitals being closed due to severe damage. The healthcare response system of the time relied almost exclusively on support resources from the federal government (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2010). By design, these teams were not able to support the local healthcare system for several days, leaving a void of services for the citizens that were hardest hit by the storm. Also during this time, the healthcare system of Mississippi faced several other critical challenges including the need for rapid assessment of impacted facilities, movement of patients between hospitals, and coordination of emergency medical services (Darsey, 2013). It is important to note that the disruption of the healthcare system resulted in challenges associated with a vulnerable population’s normal routine being severely disrupted. Additional complicating factors were a high incidence of exacerbation of chronic illnesses due to environmental conditions, loss of medications, emotional stressors, and other causes associated with the interruption of their normal level of care (Currier, King, Wofford, Daniel, & deShazo, 2006). These response challenges, coupled with the void in timely healthcare services, led to the creation of the State Medical Response System (SMRS) of Mississippi.

Memorial Hospital did not have suffice evacuation guidelines for a disaster, let alone one of this magnitude. The hospital staff developed their own triage system to evacuate patients, and as a result the LifeCare and other critically ill patients were neglected. Memorial Hospital had a vast variety of departments at the hospital including: neonatal intensive care, dialysis, oncology,

In day to day operations, uncertainties do occur. Henceforth it would be important to have a contingent and well detailed disaster preparedness plan and procedures. Healthcare systems, on a day to day basis, are faced with emergencies in form of disasters. As a result, majority of medical centers have well-structured exit plans in the event of a disaster occurring("Hospital Disaster Preparedness: Your Guide to Getting Started - Emergency Preparedness", 2011). However, this essay will aim at interviewing one of the top disaster preparedness staffat the Houston Methodist Hospital. In the interview, I will seek to identify the top three disasters that the Houston Methodist Hospital is prepared for. Similarly, in the interview, I would seek to identify the top lessons learnt from disaster preparedness at the hospitals.As it concludes it would summarize the findings with regards to the interview stated below. Below is an excerpt from the interview to answer the two aforementioned questions.

Whenever disaster or mass casualty happen their will injuries and life lost. In order to care for these individual we must separate them by category for the least serious to the most critical ones. To care for the individual certain areas are set up into three four different stage s. The first stage consist of the Hot Zone is the most contaminated area, typically requiring that responders wear some level of personal protective equipment. Another zone is the warm area where most of your decontamination work takes place.

Local, state, and federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and private-sector partners in Boston were all involved in helping to develop plans to define the certain roles and responsibilities for everyone during the Boston Marathon. Along with developing the plans for what to do, they also conducted exercises in order to test the plans out and see how well communication and coordination is during these large-scale events. While doing more research on how this emergency planning goes down, I came across a term I had never heard of before known as a Mass Casualty Incident (MCI). The Emergency Medical Care Advisory Board defines a Mass Casualty Incident as “one in which the number of people killed or injured in a single incident is large enough to strain or overwhelm the resources of local EMS providers.” The Boston Marathon bombing event definitely classified as a MCI and during the emergency response to the bombings, the performance from the response teams easily demonstrated the benefits of all the planning and test exercises they were doing prior to the

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Denton is a 255-bed hospital featuring more than forty three specialties, the hospital is located adjacent to a major highway which is used to transport hazardous materials, commuters and cargo. Texas Health Presbyterian Denton is a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, which has an estimated population of seven million residents and covers a geographical area of approximately 9,000 square miles. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and the fourth largest in the United States. The purpose of this paper will be to evaluate the Texas Health Presbyterian Denton’s Emergency Operation’s Plan to determine if it address a comprehensive response to threats, emergencies and disasters while safeguarding the welfare of its citizens.

The system they implemented categorized the patients the patients with a number 1, 2 or 3; 3 assigned to the terminally ill or with patients with DNR, which would be evacuated last. Disaster Triage operates according to a different ethical approach, the utilitarian ethical theory. Making a life or death decision that a patient will consume too many resources and must go into the dead or dying category falls against the normal ethical principles that normally guide medical staff in daily practice (journal of ethics

In reviewing the Institute of Medicine crisis standards of care report, “the committee concludes that there is an urgent and clear need for a single national set of guidance protocols for use during generalized crisis events”. Six recommendations were thought to be the basis of the standards developed.

Medical, trauma, and emergency knowledge was needed in assessing victims of the attacks, in deciding who needed or did not need medical care and in which order was most beneficial to the time and for the greatest use of supplies available. The days, weeks, months, and years required to recover from these incidents not just in the hot zone, but medically and mentally have set forth implementation of how we focus our efforts before, during, and after hazards strike. The affects of September eleventh, have taught us as first responders and government officials valuable information on disaster response and recovery efforts.

War zone triage and emergency triage has become more efficient over the years. There are a lot of things that are off limits for triage including, compromise in privacy and confidentiality, failure to provide necessary care for all patients, discrimination over race and ethnicity. Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their conditions.Triage may result in determining the order and priority of emergency treatment, the order and priority of emergency transport, or the transport destination for the patient.

After carefully analyzing all the stories on the Kaiser Health News, I picked Martha Bebinger’s article on “Price Tags on Health Care? Only In Massachusetts.” The article focuses on how private health insurance companies in Massachusetts have shared price tags of the medical care to be offered with their users. This event is seismic as sharing information that was considered heavily guarded to the public is one step to making the Obamacare work for our Medical care. As much as they have tried to make this step, the article points out many caveats that still need working on. The article also mentions that the posted prices sometimes do not include all the charges one is to incur while enjoying their health care services. Additionally, the prices keep fluctuating, and there is also no standard list of the procedures and tests which also cost a pretty penny.

Emergency management faces many challenges in today’s modern society. In the years prior to 9/11 emergency management was primarily focused on natural disasters. That has since changed; we now face a diverse variety of risks and hazards on a constant basis. As we continue to grow in population current and newer have compounded into more problems that emergency planner must face and find solutions for.

When a disaster has taken place, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be equipped to meet the demands for many services. Several issues such as the number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will stop people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment 's notice through 911 emergency services. Individuals will have to rely on others for help in order to meet their immediate lifesaving and life sustaining needs. If access is blocked or the agency’s capacity is exceeded, it may be hours or days before trained help arrives. There is a four-phase model that organizes the events of emergency managers. This model is known as the “life cycle” which includes dour

The response to any emergency is considered to be very critical and therefore should be as efficient as possible. In the healthcare sector, responses to situations are counted by the seconds. From natural disasters to epidemics, the only chance left to respond to any of this occurrence could only be counted in seconds. That means life is either saved or lost in a matter of seconds. Putting in place certain responses to these unexpected occurrences, such as crises management communication plan, help save lives and arrest crises from aggravating. Failure to have crises management communication plan is considered by many commentators to be a crisis in itself. Accepted medical care is highly dependent on effective communication between healthcare providers and the patients; among healthcare providers and the outside world. The characteristics of crises make it necessary for prior planning and effective communication among stakeholders in the health sector (Klaene and Sanders, 2006; Ronen, 2006).