There is little existing in the literature that provides a definition of readiness for a jurisdiction’s whole health care system. As defining readiness at the system level has proven to be challenging, an approach that provides a framework for planning and measuring health care readiness with broad utility is needed. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) devised the Readiness Target Project. Nine areas or dimensions of readiness emerged from this work. Through focus groups and feedback from hospital stakeholders DOHMH developed a matrix of readiness areas outlining current state, target state, gaps, and recommendations to achieve readiness. The matrix is in use as a systematic approach to discover and close gaps in the readiness of the whole health care system and to provide that system a locally valid framework to drive continuous improvement. This paper describes a framework for planning and determining the status of health care readiness at the system level for the jurisdiction. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:759-764))

Mass casualty incidents (MCIs) are becoming more frequent worldwide, especially in the Middle East where violence in Syria has spilled over to many neighboring countries. Lebanon lacks a coordinated prehospital response system to deal with MCIs; therefore, hospital preparedness plans are essential to deal with the surge of casualties. This report describes our experience in dealing with an MCI involving a car bomb in an urban area of downtown Beirut, Lebanon. It uses general response principles to propose a simplified response model for hospitals to use during MCIs. A summary of the debriefings following the event was developed and an analysis was performed with the aim of modifying our hospital’s existing disaster preparedness plan. Casualties’ arrival to our emergency department (ED), the performance of our hospital staff during the event, communication, and the coordination of resources, in addition to the response of the different departments, were examined. In dealing with MCIs, hospital plans should focus on triage area, patient registration and tracking, communication, resource coordination, essential staff functions, as well as on security issues and crowd control. Hospitals in other countries that lack a coordinated prehospital disaster response system can use the principles described here to improve their hospital’s resilience and response to MCIs. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018; 12: 379–385)

One of the biggest medical challenges after the detonation of a nuclear device will be implementing a strategy to assess the severity of radiation exposure among survivors and to triage them appropriately. Those found to be at significant risk for radiation injury can be prioritized to receive potentially lifesaving myeloid cytokines and to be evacuated to other communities with intact health care infrastructure prior to the onset of severe complications of bone marrow suppression. Currently, the most efficient and accessible triage method is the use of sequential complete blood counts to assess lymphocyte depletion kinetics that correlate with estimated whole-body dose radiation exposure. However, even this simple test will likely not be available initially on the scale required to assess the at-risk population. Additional variables such as geographic location of exposure, sheltering, and signs and symptoms may be useful for initial sorting. An interdisciplinary working group composed of federal, state, and local public health experts proposes an Exposure And Symptom Triage (EAST) tool combining estimates of exposure from maps with clinical assessments and single lymphocyte counts if available. The proposed tool may help sort survivors efficiently at assembly centers near the damage and fallout zones and enable rapid prioritization for appropriate treatment and transport. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018; 12: 386–395)

In response to the 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa, the Georgia Department of Public Health developed the Infectious Disease Network (IDN) based on an EVD preparedness needs assessment of hospitals and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers. The network consists of 12 hospitals and 16 EMS providers with staff specially trained to provide a coordinated response and utilize appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for the transport or treatment of a suspected or confirmed serious communicable disease patient. To become a part of the network, each hospital and EMS provider had to demonstrate EVD capabilities in areas such as infection control, PPE, waste management, staffing and ongoing training, and patient transport and placement. To establish the network, the Georgia Department of Public Health provided training and equipment for EMS personnel, evaluated hospitals for EVD capabilities, structured communication flow, and defined responsibilities among partners. Since March 2015, the IDN has been used to transport, treat, and/or evaluate suspected or confirmed serious communicable disease cases while ensuring health care worker safety. Integrated infectious disease response systems among hospitals and EMS providers are critical to ensuring health care worker safety, and preventing or mitigating a serious communicable disease outbreak. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:765-771)

The National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response (PACER) has created a publicly available simulation tool called Surge (accessible at http://www.pacerapps.org) to estimate surge capacity for user-defined hospitals. Based on user input, a Monte Carlo simulation algorithm forecasts available hospital bed capacity over a 7-day period and iteratively assesses the ability to accommodate disaster patients. Currently, the tool can simulate bed capacity for acute mass casualty events (such as explosions) only and does not specifically simulate staff and supply inventory. Strategies to expand hospital capacity, such as (1) opening unlicensed beds, (2) canceling elective admissions, and (3) implementing reverse triage, can be interactively evaluated. In the present application of the tool, various response strategies were systematically investigated for 3 nationally representative hospital settings (large urban, midsize community, small rural). The simulation experiments estimated baseline surge capacity between 7% (large hospitals) and 22% (small hospitals) of staffed beds. Combining all response strategies simulated surge capacity between 30% and 40% of staffed beds. Response strategies were more impactful in the large urban hospital simulation owing to higher baseline occupancy and greater proportion of elective admissions. The publicly available Surge tool enables proactive assessment of hospital surge capacity to support improved decision-making for disaster response. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:513–522)

In a disaster, physicians are forced to make challenging and heartbreaking ethical decisions under conditions of physical and emotional exhaustion. Evidence shows that the conditions of stress that mark disasters can undermine the process of ethical decision-making. This results in biased allocation of scarce resources, fewer utilitarian and altruistic decisions, and a wider variation in decisions. Stress also predisposes clinicians to decision strategy errors, such as premature closure, that lead to poor outcomes. The very ability to make sound and ethical decisions is thus a scarce resource. Ethical frameworks underpinning disaster protocols enumerate many physician obligations, but seldom articulate the risk posed by having decisions made ad hoc by decision-makers who are compromised by the stress of the concurrent crisis. We propose, therefore, that a “duty of mind”—the obligation to make critical decisions under the clearest possible state of thought—be added to ethical frameworks for disaster response. Adding the duty of mind to the pillars on which planning is based would force attention to a moral imperative to include decision support tools in disaster planning. By moving the consideration of possible choices to a moment when time and consultation facilitate clear and considered thought, the duty of mind is upheld. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:657–662)

This article outlines the evolution of a rescue team in responding to adenovirus prevention with a deployable field hospital. The local governments mobilized a shelter hospital and a rescue team consisting of 59 members to assist with rescue and response efforts after an epidemic outbreak of adenovirus. We describe and evaluate the challenges of preparing for deployment, field hospital maintenance, treatment mode, and primary treatment methods. The field hospital established at the rescue scene consisted of a medical command vehicle, a computed tomography shelter, an X-ray shelter, a special laboratory shelter, an oxygen and electricity supply vehicle, and epidemic prevention and protection equipment. The rescue team comprised paramedics, physicians, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, and logistical personnel. In 22 days, more than 3000 patients with suspected adenovirus infection underwent initial examinations. All patients were properly treated, and no deaths occurred. After emergency measures were implemented, the spread of adenovirus was eventually controlled. An emergency involving infectious diseases in less-developed regions demands the rapid development of a field facility with specialized medical personnel when local hospital facilities are either unavailable or unusable. An appropriate and detailed prearranged action plan is important for infectious diseases prevention. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:109–114)

On March 19, 2013, Khan al-Assal was attacked with chemical weapons. In total, 20 people were killed and an additional 124 were injured; 63 people were cared for at Aleppo University Hospital on that day, where 14 died, all of them were civilians; 7 men, 6 women, and 1 child. This is a brief first hand report, for what has now become a more frequent, more deadly and horrific event in the lives of many Syrians. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:663–665)

In recent years it has been common after disasters and terrorist events to offer bereaved families the opportunity to visit the place where their loved ones died. Many report that such visits are beneficial in processing their loss. Various factors, both cognitive (eg, counteracting disbelief) and existential or emotional (eg, achieving a sense of closeness to the deceased), are associated with the experienced benefit. Nonetheless, exacerbations of trauma and grief reactions (eg, re-enactment fantasies) are common, with some of the bereaved also reporting adverse reactions after the visit. Subsequently, proper preparations are a prerequisite before such visits take place. This article describes how to optimize collective visits to the site of death after disasters or terrorist events for bereaved families. Important questions—for example, concerning those who should be responsible for organizing a visit and those who should be invited, the timing of the visit, what can be done at the site, the need for support personnel, and other practical issues—are discussed and general guidelines are recommended. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:523–527)

This paper presents an overview of the importance of oral health in complex emergencies. It highlights the importance of maintaining general and oral health in the acute, intermediate and long-term phases of such events which are increasing in frequency. The importance of oral health as an early warning sign for systemic disease and deprivation is also explored along with the crucial role of oral health in maintaining quality of life through adequate nutrition and speech. The overview of oral health in these situations identifies the need for training dental personnel as members of rehabilitation teams that set out to manage these disasters. They can quickly help in improving quality of life for victims by extracting carious and painful teeth as necessary, and also form part of an oral health education program for aid agencies. They can also be the first to identify systemic diseases like HIV and may also play a role in identifying victims of abuse, as non-accidental injuries can frequently present in the oro-facial region. The oral health overview concludes by describing the contents of innovative oral health packs that are tailored to prevention of dental diseases and that can be readily incorporated as part of food packs distributed by aid agencies. (Disaster Med Public Health Prepardness. 2018;12:772-777)

On April 20, 2013, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan County, Ya’an City, Sichuan Province in southwest China. West China Hospital of Sichuan University, the largest and best hospital in Sichuan Province, is located in the city of Chengdu—about 100 km from the epicenter—and provided medical treatment to a total of 400 seismic patients. In this article, we retrospectively investigated 199 patients with musculoskeletal injuries who were treated in the Department of Orthopedics. Based on the seismic intensity distribution map, injury-occurring locations were divided into 5 grade-related areas: IX, VIII, VII, VI, and ≤V grade-area. The characteristics of seismic injuries were analyzed according to the geographic distribution of victims. We found that the constituent ratio of injury causes significantly differed in different earthquake areas according to the seismic intensity. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018; 12: 408–410)

In September 2005, nearly 3.7 million people evacuated the Texas coastline in advance of Hurricane Rita’s landfall, making the event the largest emergency evacuation in US history. The Rita evacuation underscored the importance of planning for domestic mass-evacuation events, as the evacuation itself led to over 100 of the at least 119 deaths attributed to the storm. In the days preceding Rita’s landfall, several cascading, interrelated circumstances precipitated such adverse outcomes. This article explores the series of events leading up to the evacuation’s poor outcomes, the response following Rita to amend evacuation plans, and how Texas successfully implemented these changes during later storms to achieve better outcomes. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:115–120)

Early on August 2, 2014, in the city of Toledo, Ohio, a media alert informed the public that traces of microcystin, a hazardous toxin, had been detected in the drinking water. The warning stated that residents should not drink, boil, or even touch the contaminated water. A water crisis of this magnitude was recognized to pose a potentially serious and significant impact on patient care and safety in health care environments. ProMedica Toledo Hospital’s Emergency Operation Plan addressed 3 critical issues: safe water availability, alternate cleaning solutions, and preparations for a prolonged crisis. This report details some of the lessons learned throughout the response to the crisis: particularly, because the impact was county-wide which affected other hospitals who used the same vendors, alternate water sources should have been secured in advance; the courier service was vital to delivery of supplies and moving equipment to alternate areas for sterilization processes; and finally, communication with staff and patients was jeopardized by external media outlets. Changes to the emergency plan considering these unanticipated aspects proved useful in a later incident and should be considered by all health care facilities as water emergency policies and procedures are created and reviewed. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:666–668)

Mass casualty incidents are a concern in many urban areas. A community’s ability to cope with such events depends on the capacities and capabilities of its hospitals for handling a sudden surge in demand of patients with resource-intensive and specialized medical needs. This paper uses a whole-hospital simulation model to replicate medical staff, resources, and space for the purpose of investigating hospital responsiveness to mass casualty incidents. It provides details of probable demand patterns of different mass casualty incident types in terms of patient categories and arrival patterns, and accounts for related transient system behavior over the response period. Using the layout of a typical urban hospital, it investigates a hospital’s capacity and capability to handle mass casualty incidents of various sizes with various characteristics, and assesses the effectiveness of designed demand management and capacity-expansion strategies. Average performance improvements gained through capacity-expansion strategies are quantified and best response actions are identified. Capacity-expansion strategies were found to have superadditive benefits when combined. In fact, an acceptable service level could be achieved by implementing only 2 to 3 of the 9 studied enhancement strategies. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:778-790)

The frequency of bioevents is increasing worldwide. In the United States, as elsewhere, control of contagion may require the cooperation of community members with emergency public health measures. The US general public is largely unfamiliar with these measures, and our understanding of factors that influence behaviors in this context is limited. The few previous reviews of research on this topic focused on non-US samples. For this review, we examined published research on the psychosocial influences of adherence in US sample populations. Of 153 articles identified, only 9 met the inclusion criteria. Adherence behaviors were categorized into 2 groups: self-protective behaviors (personal hygiene, social distancing, face mask use, seeking out health care advice, and vaccination) and protecting others (isolation, temperature screening, and quarantine). A lack of uniformity across studies regarding definitions and measures was noted. Only 5 of the 9 articles reported tests of association between adherence with emergency measures and psychosocial factors; perceived risk and perceived seriousness were found to be significantly associated with adherence or adherence intentions. Although it is well documented that psychosocial factors are important predictors of protective health behaviors in general, this has not been rigorously studied in the context of bioevents. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:528–535)

Social capital (SC) is highlighted as an important factor for post-crisis mental health outcomes. However, the heterogeneous nature of the construct makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the evidence concerning the association between SC indices and mental health. This review examines how SC is conceptualized and measured, and the relationships with other variables in quantitative empirical studies investigating the associations between SC and mental health in post-disaster and post-conflict contexts. It includes primary data studies focusing on this association in civilian populations. Studies were identified by searching electronic databases, bibliographic mining, cited reference searching, and personal contact with experts. In total, 15 studies were included: 12 in post-natural disaster contexts and 3 in conflict-affected settings. Findings suggested that individual cognitive SC had an inverse association with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, and that ecological cognitive SC was positively associated with mental well-being. Individual structural SC (in the form of community networks) may be psychologically protective. However, most of the evidence was cross-sectional, limiting conclusions about causal relationships. More clarity and consistency is needed in the conceptualization and measurement of SC in order to inform post-crisis mental health interventions. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:791-802)