Medical Response Team

First, determine patient responsiveness. If there is no response, immediately activate the emergency medical response team and obtain an automated external defibrillator (AED) if one is available. 

DOD Marine Corps Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, DOD Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, DOD Naval Medical Research Institute, HHS National Medical Response Teams, HHS Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, HHS Metropolitan Medical Strike Teams, HHS Experts from Public Health Safety agencies, DOE Radiation Emergency Assistance Center and Training Site. 

The Office of Emergency Preparedness provides other emergency response teams, such as Disaster Mortuary Teams. Additionally, it has established special National Medical Response Teams to provide treatment, decontamination, and special pharmacenticals to treat np to 1,000 patients. The Metropolitan Medical Strike Teams, also established nnder this office, ensnre the continned viabihty of a jurisdiction s existing health system given the added bnrden of a WMD incident. The Metropolitan Medical Response System consists of parts of existing local systems that can be called in to provide triage, treatment, and patient decontamination. This system transports patients who have been decontaminated at the scene to other facilities as appropriate for continned care. The System also assists medical facilities in developing procednres that ensnre patients are decontaminated before they enter a facility. ... 

Healthcare providers, as well as local officials, are concerned about the spread of contamination. The procedure for decontamination of litter patients can be found in Appendix E of U.S. Army Field Manual 8-10-4, Medical Platoon Leaders Handbook Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.8 The IRF will decontaminate patients and pass them across a hotline to the Medical Response Team (MRT). At that point the casualty should be completely clean. Civilian officials may require a casualty certified clean before moving the patient off the military installation. This requirement may be avoided through adequate coordination and training prior to an exercise or an actual chemical accident or incident. Building confidence in the civilian sector through education and communication is essential in providing a rapid and adequate medical response. 

In the civil setting, unlike the military, there are few preset detection and alarm systems in vulnerable public places such as the metro system. Toxic releases are usually the responsibility of the fire and rescue services who have their own detection equipment. Increasingly, primary emergency medical response teams also have their own equipment for detection and identification of a toxic agent release. Figure 4.3 shows the range of equipment carried by the British hazardous area paramedical response teams (HART). 

Each biological agent chapter has a Response on Scene by First Responders section that includes Caution, Field First Aid, Drugs, Antibiotics, Medical Management, Fire, Personal Protection, Spill/Feak Control, Symptoms, and Vaccines. Also, spread over other chapters, will include basic duties of various first responders including Fire Departments, Emergency Medical Services, Law Enforcement, and Hazardous Materials Response Teams. 

Braithwaite RS, DeVita MA, Mahidhara R, et al. 2004. Use of medical emergency team (MET) responses to detect medical errors. QualSaf Health Care 13 255—9. 

Medical response. NDMS responds to a disaster area with disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs),... 

It is of critical importance, therefore, that mental health workers are part of the response team from the outset. Alexander (1990) has identified four main reasons to include mental health workers as part of the immediate medical response ... 

Military support to civil authorities is the final tier in the nation s disaster response system. Federal resources that may be implemented in the event of a major biochemical or radiation disaster are the U.S. Army Special Medical Augmentation Response Teams. The mission of the SMART teams is to provide short-duration medical liaison to local, state, federal, and DOD agencies responding to disasters, civil-military cooperative actions, humanitarian assistance missions, weapons of mass destruction incidents, or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents. There are 37 SMART teams, including two burn SMART teams operated by the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical... 

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