Civilian Hospital and Healthcare System Preparedness (Location, Preparedness, Epidemiology Review of Data)

Abstract

Hospitals, emergency medical services (EMS) providers, and other organizations within the civilian healthcare system very rarely, if ever, encounter victims of blast incidents in their normal course of operations. However, when blast incidents do occur due to industrial accidents, acts of violence, or other causes, the local civilian healthcare system must be prepared to respond instantly and meet the specialized demands that are predictable with such incidents. These demands may include the need to anticipate special safety and security threats to first responders and first receivers, the need to expertly specially manage the transport and distribution of injured victims, the need to create immediate trauma and burn surge capacity among receiving hospitals, and the need to ensure that responding clinicians are adequately familiar with the unique injury patterns associated with blasts. Communities and healthcare systems must either create detailed and specialized plans to respond to blast incidents or risk exposing the injured victims and their responders to further harm and/or preventable mistakes in their medical care. Adequate civilian healthcare system planning for blast incidents requires knowledge of the unique epidemiology of these kinds of incidents and complex coordination across the community and within hospitals before blast events occur in order to save the greatest number of lives and to minimize morbidity.