What’s Preparedness Worth? Is $3.5 Million Enough?
My experience has always been that preparedness is a tough sell. The value seems to go up after there has been an event and a bad outcome was a result. [...]
Medical Rapid Response Team – Ideal for Catastrophic Events
I've been involved in planning for a Cascadia earthquake/tsunami event and a New Madrid earthquake event so I know what a catastrophe will look like. I have not been involved [...]
Hospital Decontamination Operations – Documentation
My recommendation is to take the time to put together an operations manual that covers your entire Hospital Emergency Response Team (HERT) program. This will keep all the important [...]
Hospital Decontamination Operations- Training
If your staff attend a training session such as the one provided by the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) they learn the process of establishing and operating a decontamination corridor. I [...]
Hospital Decontamination Operations – Staffing
In my experience staffing is one of the biggest challenges hospitals face when trying to sustain a Hospital Emergency Response Team (HERT) program. Staff members get selected based upon their [...]
Hospital Decontamination Operations- Facilities
In my first post on Hospital Decontamination Operations, I mentioned that most facilities have some type of fixed decontamination room in close proximity to the Emergency Department (ED). As they [...]
Hospital Decontamination Programs – Challenges and Solutions
I first began identifying issues hospitals had in common relative to hazardous materials preparedness after I led the development of the course Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents at [...]
Want to reduce the impact of IEDs? Start with training
Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Since first gaining notoriety in 2003 in Iraq, IEDs have been widely used across the world. These devices are easily fabricated with household items and/or chemicals, [...]
Radiological Event Considerations
Radiation tends to be a word that conjures up fear for some so I thought I would offer some basic considerations to keep in mind. The recent concern over North [...]
Chemical Weapons Don’t Need Importing
CIA Director John Brennan has warned that the Daesh may attempt to sell and move chemical weapons they have developed into Western countries. My comment is why bother moving them in [...]