Chemical emergencies can happen at any time at health care
facilities. The impact may not only be to the facility but
patients, staff, and the surrounding community. To assist
hospitals and all health care partners, ASPR/TRACIE has developed
a “Chemical Emergency Considerations for Health Care Facilities”
resource to assist in preparing and responding to chemical
emergencies.
Presenter:
Jason Wilken, PHD, MPH, CDC Career
Epidemiology Field Officer
Danny Kwon, MPH, REHS, California
Department of Public Health
Right of Boom refers to impacts following a radiological/nuclear
explosion which is in the Medical and Health domain. An
improvised nuclear detonation (IND) is the highest impact
terrorism event. It also has the highest potential for saving
lives, hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet medical and health
preparedness activities rarely address radiological emergencies
and the unique attributes of radiological exposure and
contamination. Hospitals and local jurisdictions that plan for
medical surge of contaminated patients will save thousands of
lives without endangering their workforce or disrupting other
operations.
ASPR TRACIE’s program on the impact of radiological incidents on
health and healthcare provides information and planning
strategies related to radiological incidents.
The speakers
shared guidance and lessons learned from recent exercises and
reviewed research in assessing, triaging, treating, and
following-up on casualties of radiological and nuclear
emergencies.
A disaster, whether nature or man-made, can strike anyone
anywhere, including an academic research facility. To ensure
their preparedness and resilience, the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has developed
a report that outlines actions that can be taken to
strengthen academic research facility disaster readiness.
This guide was developed by The New York City Hospital Radiation
Working Group, a multi-hospital working group convened by the NYC
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) that included
nuclear medicine, radiation oncology, emergency medicine, health
physics, emergency management, mental health, environmental
medicine, and radiation-related treatment and monitoring
professionals.
Every effort has been made to ensure the information in this
manual is accurate and consistent with sound radiation protection
and assessment methods, policies, and practices.
CHEMM-IST is a prototype decision support tool developed by
experts in medicine and emergency response as an aid for
identifying the chemical a patient was exposed to in a mass
casualty incident. Toxic syndromes or toxidromes are easily
identified with only a few observations. The key data points to
determine toxidromes are easily identified by first responders
with basic EMT training, such as:
Vital signs
Mental Status
Pupil size
Mucous membrane irritation
Lung exam for wheezes or crackles
Skin for burns, moistures, and color
CHEMM-IST is currently in the beta phase of development. This
tool, once thoroughly tested and validated by a wide range of
potential users via case studies, is intended for use by basic
life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) providers as
well as hospital first receivers.
The focus of CHEMM-IST is only on severe cases, and CHEMM-IST
assumes that the patient has only inhaled the chemical and that
the chemical has not deposited on the skin.
Feedback is welcome and encouraged. Please contact the CHEMM development team
if you would like to offer comments about CHEMM-IST or encounter
any issues with the tool.
This tool was developed to be a comprehensive resource for
clinical personnel by providing information on various aspects of
biological, chemical, and radiological terrorism. It is intended
to serve as an emergent guide book on what to do and where to
seek information in the event of an attack.
The Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management website offers
a comprehensive, user-friendly, web-based resource that is also
downloadable in advance, so that it would be available during an
event if the internet is not accessible.
This resource was developed to enable first responders, first
receivers, other healthcare providers, and planners to plan for,
respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of
mass-casualty incidents involving chemicals.
This Burn Resource Manual has been created as a tool for use by
the Emergency Departments in all Los Angeles County Hospitals.
The materials were developed and/or selected from the burn
literature by a Burn Task Force. This Burn Task Force was created
by the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency. This
multi-disciplinary group included the Medical Directors and
Administrative Nurses from the three burn centers in Los Angeles
County, one center in Orange County and one center in San
Bernardino county and representatives of the Emergency Medical
Services Agency.
