Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
partner effectively with the media in reaching
the public.
Step 5: Develop means for verifying
credentials of medical and other health
personnel prior to and on-site during a
mass casualty event.
In disaster situations, individuals who claim to be
qualified providers and who want to volunteer their
services typically approach health care facilities.
In order to be able to make use of such resources,
facility and incident managers need to have tools
and methods, such as searchable databases, for
verifying credentials. Efforts are underway at both
the State and Federal levels to address this need.
Emergency Systems for Advance Registration of
Volunteer Health Care Personnel (ESAR-VHP), as
outlined in the Public Health Security and Bioter-
rorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002
(Public Law 107-188), as well as the Medical
Reserve Corps credentialing efforts, and other
State-developed systems are examples of tools that
could be useful in this regard.
•
Find effective ways to communicate clinical
information to lay audiences.
•
Utilize primary care providers and local public
health departments, especially nurses, in getting
out agreed-upon messages in local communities
on a one to one basis.
•
Provide a communications capability at the
level of the individual facility as well as through
joint information centers.
•
Include communications internal to health care
facilities and among system components, such
as hospitals and alternate care sites, in commu-
nications strategies.
•
Build on the HANS (Health Alert Network
System), part of CDC's emergency alert
system, to develop an overall communication
strategy.
Step 4: Identify, analyze, and consider
modification of Federal, State, and local
laws and regulations that may affect the
delivery of health and medical care
during a mass casualty event.
As part of an effort to develop a legal frame-
work for providing health and medical care in
a mass casualty situation, an effort should be
made to create a compendium of laws and regu-
lations at the Federal, State and local levels
that affect the delivery of health and medical
care. This compendium of laws and regula-
tions would facilitate the creation of an adequate
legal framework for moving to altered standards
of care when necessary. It would identify the
following:
Step 6: Create strategies to ensure health
and medical leadership and coordination
for the health and medical aspects of
system response during a mass casualty
event.
Experience in developing preparedness strategies
suggests there is a need to assure high-level health
and medical leadership at the system and regional
levels. For some systems and regions, this may
involve creating a designated Medical Disaster
Specialist or a role with comparable responsibili-
ties to coordinate the health and medical aspects of
system response. The expertise required ensuring
appropriate health and medical leadership in a mass
casualty event includes the following:
•
Knowledge about how and when to initiate
altered standards of care.
•
The responsible parties for each law or regula-
tion (local, State or Federal government).
•
Knowledge and skill to facilitate communica-
tion and provide the link between the medical
care system and overall incident response.
•
Circumstances when each law or regulation can
be modified.
•
Specific ways each law or regulation could be
modified on a temporary basis.
•
Knowledge and skill to provide disaster-related
medical leadership in a system of community
