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 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

If you ever the thought the world was small- don’t worry. It is.

I looked up from the table and swore it was the lack of sleep, combined with the desire to see a familiar face that was making the man that had just arrived at the shelter look like my favorite waiter from my favorite French Quarter bistro.

He paced back and forth, smoking a cigarette, and then came over to me and asked me a question. I answered and then couldn’t help myself, the possiblity of looking foolish was just not one that I was really willing to consider at that point.  That pretty much went out the window after going a few days with no shower in 90+ degree heat, right?

Well, it DID turn out to be my favorite waiter, from my favorite bistro, from my favorite city, which just happens to be 1,500 miles away from my usual residence.  And we DID happen to be in a big city (650,000-I checked) about 400 miles away from HIS hometown, and about 1,250 miles away from MY current hometown.

And once you factor in that this was the largest Louisiana evacuation in history (1.9 million evacuees) to many different cities, what are the odds of two people who know each other from such seperate places coming together on accident?

I am sure they are about close to lightning striking the same place twice. But I have heard that happens too. All in all a good lesson to us that while our work in a disaster sometimes feels like it is not helping those we know personally, sometimes it is…

Viva La NOLA! And Cheers to the Alpine Bistro on Rue Chartres. Thanks for the Flaming Coffees all these years!

Tags: coffee, DMS, Gustav, hurricane, MCI, Memphis, New Orleans, Paramedic, Shelby County, waiters

Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources

plant cell pictures

Background
In the event of a catastrophic public health- or terrorism-related event, such as an influenza pandemic or the detonation of improvised nuclear devices, the resulting tens of thousands of victims will be likely to overwhelm the resources of a community’s health care system. In this dire scenario, which is refered to as a mass casualty event or incident (MCE/MCI), it will be necessary to allocate scarce resources in a manner that is different from usual circumstances but appropriate to the situation. Making optimal decisions concerning the allocation of scarce resources could make a big difference in the degree to which health care systems continue to function; ultimately it could mean saving many thousands of lives.

Purpose of the MAss Medical Care with Scarse Resource Guide
The purpose of the Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources guide is to provide community planners – as well as planners at the facility/community, State, and Federal levels – with valuable insights and information that will help them in their efforts to plan for and respond to an MCE/MCI. The guide aims to present planners with approaches and strategies that would enable them to provide the most appropriate standards of care possible under the circumstances of an MCE.
This document is intended not to reflect Department of Health and Human Services policy but to provide State and local planners with options to consider when planning their response to an MCE/MCI.

Disaster Management Solutions develops fully configurable and customisable tracking software designed to help state, local and federal governments effectively manage Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources. Our Patient Tracking Systems, Mass Vaccination Tracking Solutions, and Inventory Tracking Solutions are designed for Mass Casualy Incidents such as those discussed in the Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources Guide.

Tags: DMS, mass casualty, MCE, MCI

National Incident Management System (NIMS)

astigmatism eye

The National Incident Management System provides a systematic, proactive approach guiding departments and agencies at all levels of government, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations to work seamlessly to prepare for, prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of incidents, regardless of cause, size, location, or complexity, in order to reduce the loss of life, property, and harm to the environment. Read more about the National Incident Management System Here.

Disaster Management Solutions Patient Tracking systems are designed in compliance iwht NIMS and other federal standards and guidelines.

Tags: FEMA, MCI, NIMS, Standards