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Inadequate Mass-Casualty Knowledge Base Adversely Affects Treatment Decisions by Trauma Care Providers: Survey on Hospital Response following a Terrorist Bombing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Itamar Ashkenazi ,
Oded Olsha ,
William P. Schecter ,
Boris Kessel ,
Tawfik Khashan  and
Ricardo Alfici
Itamar Ashkenazi*
Affiliation:
1Surgery B Department, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel
Oded Olsha
Affiliation:
2Surgery Department, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel
William P. Schecter
Affiliation:
3UCSF Department of Surgery, San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, California USA
Boris Kessel
Affiliation:
4Trauma Unit, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel
Tawfik Khashan
Affiliation:
4Trauma Unit, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel
Ricardo Alfici
Affiliation:
1Surgery B Department, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel
*
Surgery B DepartmentHillel Yaffe Medical CenterPOB 169 Hadera, Israel 38100 E-mail: i_ashkenazi@yahoo.com
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Abstract

Healthcare professionals require a unique knowledge base to function effectively during a hospital's response to a mass-casualty incident (MCI). A survey of 128 physicians, nurses, and emergency medical technicians involved in trauma care was conducted to assess their knowledge base and how it affected their decision-making in response to a MCI following a terrorist bombing. Three-quarters of the study group responded that ≥20% of the surviving victims were critically injured. Only half of the responders indicated that the main objective of medical management is identifying and treating patients with critical injuries. Forty percent of responders indicated that they would not triage a critically injured victim to immediate care. This survey indicates that further education in the principles of MCI management should be based on critical evaluation of the literature.

Keywords

contingency planningdisaster planningmass-casualty incidentmedical educationterrorist bombing
Type
Original Research
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 2009 , pp. 342 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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