Pandemic Readiness and DMS: Swine Flu 2009

DMS has released a POD and Pandemic File for our current customers.

Any customers needing immediate assistance should call 860-287-7221 or 860-287-7223 or 203-676-4182.
This software tracks distribution of your SNS inventory of Tamiflu and Relenza.
It also will track your POD patients, as well as any current suspected cases of Swine Flu as well as confirmed cases.

For those customers wishing to track and report in excel format, this ability exists within the server version of FirstTrak and can be activated by customer service.

Thank you.

DMS

Tags: Disaster Management Solutions, DMS, Inventory, kirchberg-schmitt, mass casualty, MCI, pandemic preparedness, POD, Relenza, service, swine flu, Tamiflu

The Eastern Shore

For several years now, our company has been all over the country, gathering data and feedback from hospitals, Public Safety agencies, Fire Departments, Regional Councils, Emergency Management Agencies… all to create, recreate, change, and morph the FirstTrak Suite into something useful for every sector of Disaster Healthcare.
From mobile field hospitals to large several hundred bed facilities, from small town fire departments to one of the largest in the country, we work with all to create a unified data structure that enables many to stand as one.
Constantly changing and growing from each real life experience, each deployment with one of our customers, and each drill we attend and participate in, we have enabled a product once used for inventory to collect data on Flu Immunizations, Point of Dispensing, Pet Tracking, Evacuees, Family Reunification, Patient Tracking, MCI transports, Evidence Collection, and Decedent Tracking and Identification.
Our latest trip was to visit one of our first customers Caroline County Public Health, and to welcome the newest members of the DMS family, MHE and DGH, both located on the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Tags: Decedent Tracking and Identification., DMS, evacuees, Evidence Collection, Family Reunification, Flu Immunizations, Inventory, MCI transports, Patient Tracking, Pet Tracking, Point of Dispensing, Shore Health

The Great Shakeout After Action Report Commentary

excerpt taken from DMS After Action Report:

DMS participant commentary

Kim Kirchberg-Schmitt
Strike Team Leader, LAFD Project Manager

The goal of this exercise for me was to get the units in the hands of a few of the members of the department, and to expose the LAFD to the EPTS they have invested in. This project I expect will be an ongoing effort of several members of both the department, as well as DMS. With the recent fires and train disasters, it seems that the natural progression would be to slowly expand the awareness of the system first, and then attempt to install and deliver it to those who will be ultimately responsible for patient tracking.
I was extremely pleased with the LAFD’s involvement and commitment to this test of the system, and felt that the drill was a success from both a technology perspective as well as a human one. Without the support of key individuals who were obviously prepared ahead of time with information and an objective, I don’t believe the test would have been met with such enthusiasm and acceptance. All of the patients that were appropriately funneled through the choke point created at the East Gate area were scanned and tracked using the system, and even those who were not given a bar-coded tag were able to be tracked with ease by rapid manual entry of their triage tag ID.
The drill was intended to have an element of surprise for many of the responders and I felt this contributed to the ultimate success of the test. The natural flow of an incident is never one without bottlenecks, but the ability to identify those bottlenecks and put them to productive use (gathering more specific patient data such as name, gender, DOB, and photos) was one that evolved as the exercise progressed.
At the end of the incident, being able to give the total counts to the PIO staff within a few minutes was clearly representative of the hard work and dedication of the participants, as well as the functionality and usability of the system overall.

Tags: After action report, California, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Drills, EMS, EMT, Fire Department, Golden Guardian, Great Shake Out, kirchberg-schmitt, LA Fire Department, LinkedIn, mass casualty, MCI, Paramedic, Patient Tracking, response, strike team, tracking, train crash, transport, treatment, Triage

Golden Guardian 2008 and the Great Shakeout

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
__________________________________________________
FirstTrak Patient Tracking System Tested During Great Shakeout
Torrance, CA - November 20, 2008 – Disaster Management Solutions
(DMS) achieved continued success working with four separate public safety
agencies and numerous hospitals simultaneously during the largest disaster
exercise of its kind in California last week. The Great Shakeout simulated a 7.8
earthquake and saw over 5 million participants across the state. Of
those that participated, the DMS First Trak Patient Tracking System
successfully tracked well over 500? (need actual number or ballpark
here) individuals (need the from where to where here).
“We are very pleased with the feedback we heard from our customers
during the exercise. Four separate public safety agencies of considerable
size in Southern California utilized the system and the response was
very positive,” said DMS President Jay O’Donnell. Riverside County,
Kaiser Bellflower, the Los Angeles County Coroner and the Los Angeles Fire
Department all utilized the FirstTrak system as part of the
exercise. DMS staff were on-hand at the Mission Hills school that the Governor
personally attended and spoke at and were excited to be able to showcase the system
to him.
“Being a local company, we have an added interest in disaster
preparedness in Southern Cal and we are delighted to have quite a
footprint established in the area and to be able to make a
difference,” commented O’Donnell.
Located in Southern California, Disaster Management Solutions and
their First Trak Suite enables multiple uses for multiple purposes
and applications. First Trak has been utilized by hospitals, EMS
agencies, fire departments, public health agencies, the National
Guard and the Red Cross. Disaster Management Solutions has over 25
regional engagements across the country covering over 400 individual
entities.

Tags: California, drill, earthquake, EMS, First Responder, FirstTrak, kirchberg-schmitt, LA City Fire Department, Linked In, O'Donnell, Paramedic, Patient Tracking, preparedness

Memphis Training

Memphis and Shelby County used the First Trak system during Gustav to track the evacuees they recieved from New Orleans. The system worked well and was easy to train the First Responders on in less than 10 minutes. This week, the Shelby Co. MMRS group was able to train a new group of trainers within their response system from many different agencies. The Memphis Fire Department sent a large continigent of Battalion Chiefs and Trainers as well as Paramedics, The Red Cross was very well represented, and numerous local hospitals and EMS agencies. Germantown Fire Department and Bartlett Fire/EMS were represented. I was honored to meet staff from Tenet Healthcare’s St. Francis- Bartlett, Methodist, The Med, LeBonheur, the Memphis VA, and Delta Medical Center.

ProMed sent representatives from Knox County (Eastern Tennessee also has the system) as well as their Memphis operation. Also represented were Emmact, Abundant Care, and the Memphis/Shelby County EMA. The Office of Preparedness sent representives as did the Tennessee Department of Health-Division of EMS.

This is exactly the kind of multi-agency trining that is need to ensure a seamless integration of an EPTS in a community or region. No longer do you need a subject matter expert in the MAC or in your EOC to know how the tracking system works! When all levels of response are trained, as well as all agencies, the system can be expanded and utilized to it’s fullest capacity.

I work with a lot of communities, and I can say without a doubt that Memphis and Shelby County have certainly risen to the occasion with this training. I was proud to be a part of their learning process. This group proves to me that when people are motivated by one common goal and unified in their efforts towards reaching that goal, anything can be accomplished and agency lines can disappear, leaving one whole that is by far greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Tags: EMS, kirchberg-schmitt, LinkedIn, Memphis, mmrs, Paramedic, patient tracking system, ProMed

Why on Earth is Patient Tracking Important, you ask?

Tags: 911, disaster, EMS, fire, kirchberg-schmitt, Patient Tracking, police

The Aftermath of Gustav and Ike

As posted on the The Military Health System Blog

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - Hurricanes Ike and Gustav
Posted by: Colonel Donald L. Noah

In the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Air Force Col. Donald L. Noah, chief of staff for Force Health Protection and Readiness, weighs in with lessons learned from the military’s response to these storms.

Hurricanes Ike and Gustav:
Real-Life Application of the Joint Force Health Protection CONOPS

The winds of hurricanes Gustav and Ike have died down but work in the aftermath goes on. Part of that work is assessing what assistance was provided by the Military Health System (MHS), what went right and wrong with that assistance, and how we can do better in the future. One thing is for sure, in addition to all the other missions of the MHS, hurricanes will keep coming and we will keep being requested to assist.

What does hurricane response have to do with the Joint Force Health Protection concept of operations (JFHP CONOPS)? Plenty! Although I’ve only recently studied the JFHP CONOPS, I’ll bet very few of you have—largely due to the fact that it was only recently drafted and published. As a very brief primer, JFHP is organized into six functional focus areas:

1. Human performance enhancement
2. Health surveillance, intelligence, and preventive medicine
3. Command and control
4. Patient movement
5. Casualty management
6. Medical logistics and infrastructure support

Simply put, the JFHP CONOPS examines the future warfighting context and characteristics of the future joint force in order to characterize future required medical capabilities. As I read through the CONOPS document, having recently returned from an on-site visit to the hurricane response area, I saw how effectively the document is organized and how it lays out a process for continual improvement for all types of missions, from the War on Terror to responding to disasters in CONUS.

Alright, enough of the CONOPS lead-in—back to the hurricane situation. Here is a summary of what we did, how well we did it, and how we can do better in the future:

What the MHS provided

· Leadership advice and guidance. Through the NORTHCOM Surgeon’s office, we have a nationwide array of 14 Joint Regional Medical Plans officers (JRMPOs). All available JRMPOs were mobilized to coordinate and synchronize state and Federal ESF-8 capabilities.

· Patient movement. Both within and without the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), aeromedical evacuation units from Active Duty and Air National Guard units moved approximately 473 non-ambulatory patients out of harm’s way.

· Medical support to general evacuation effort. The Air Force’s San Antonio-based 59th Medical Wing provided medical screening and emergent care to the thousands of people evacuated from the landfall areas.

· Medical logistics. Through the ARNORTH emergency operations center in San Antonio, the right military medical materiel was provided to the right place at the right time.

What went right

· The JRMPOs provided the unique “glue” that bound the interagency effort. During my trip to Texas between the hurricanes, every single agency representative I met requested more of these valuable officers.

· The Texas Military Forces, ably led in the medical context by Joint Surgeon Colonel (Dr.) Connie McNabb, proved capable of augmenting—and in many cases, replacing—Federal response assets.

· Personal initiative at all levels effectively erased policy shortfalls and ensured that patients were moved safely and quickly.

· Operational communication between military medical response experts at all levels (e.g., OSD, NORTHCOM, ARNORTH, and Texas Military Forces) provided effective situational awareness.

What went wrong

· The NDMS does seem adequately user-friendly to state and local medical officials. Additionally, it does not apply to non-ambulatory patients in facilities other than hospitals (e.g., nursing homes and hospice care). Therefore, I believe we dodged a bullet so far in this hurricane season; our success is as much due to the relatively small numbers of patients requiring evacuation rather than to the effectiveness of the system.

· Medical response policies of certain interagency partners (e.g., DoD/TRANSCOM, HHS/NDMS, and DHS/FEMA) are not sufficiently interoperable to ensure seamless operations.

How can we improve?

· First, and perhaps most important, we need to ensure that our DoD response policies are coordinated with all agencies, both internal and external to DoD.

· We also need to lean forward to proactively work with our interagency partners on improving Federal policies. A salient example is patient movement. Whether by air, rail or bus, and whether by NDMS or non-NDMS assets, we need to do a better job of preparing to respond.

As of this writing, we are already taking steps to move out on plans improvement. Dr. Casscells and Ms. Embrey have empowered us to host several meetings to lead this process of policy integration. The first will be an After-Action Review of senior action officers of the MHS to identify issues and workable solutions, whether in the domains of doctrine, policy, operational guidance, or training. The second meeting will include our intergovernmental partners to review, revise, and integrate Federal policies and guidances to operationalize those improvements before the next hurricane season.

To conclude, I must briefly return to the JFHP CONOPS document. Its central theme is Protect the Force, Enhance the Mission. That’s a deceptively simple statement—one that elegantly sums up the strategic objective of all military medical forces. If I’ve been successful in anything during this blog entry, it’s that 1) the MHS provides a unique and vital service to our country—as was demonstrated during our response to the hurricanes, 2) no matter how good we are at providing that service, we can always do better, and 3) the Joint Force Health Protection CONOPS document is an excellent reference in understanding your role in the MHS and how you can contribute to its improvement. I’m attaching the document for those who are (or should be) interested.

Tags: Ambulance, Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response Team, DMS, EMS, EMT, Gustav, hurricane, Ike, Katrina, Paramedic

Peter Canning

I have been reading Peter Canning’s books and blog for years, and I always enjoy his perspectives on this job we do.

http://medicscribe.blogspot.com/

He wrote several excellent blogs after he was deployed to Gulfport, Mississippi in 2005- I will attempt to link to them here on their own page.

Tags: Disaster Response, DMS, EMS, hurricane, Katrina, Paramedic, Peter Canning

An Interesting Paramedic Blog

http://theparamedicsdiary.blogspot.com/

This fellow is from London, England, where they currently use the SMART traige tags and system.

We use the system here in Connecticut, and they also use it as the state standard in North Carolina as well.  I am sure it has reached to other places, but these are just two I have run into personally.

Tags: Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response, Drills, mass casualty incident, SMART, Triage

Nursing Homes Detail Evac Process

la_nursing_homes_hospitals_move_patients.avi

I found this video to be interesting.

Tags: Ambulance, Communications, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response Team, DMS, Drills, evacuation, evacuees, Gustav, Hannah, hurricane, Ike, Incident Communication Solutions, LaserBand, Louisiana, Memphis, New Orleans, Packing, Paramedic, patient, Planning, readiness, response, Team, Tennessee