Healthcare trainees at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) http://cdp.dhs.gov within FEMA www.fema.gov will soon effectively be able to track patients during mass casualty exercises. CDP fully funded by the Department of Homeland Security has the capability to prepare state, local, and tribal responders to handle manmade events or major accidents involving mass casualties.
“We’re in the process of incorporating software that can be used on a majority of smart devices”, reports Jesse Giddens, CDP Healthcare Training Manager. “These devices enable an automated patient tracking system to be used.”
The software enables trainees to scan barcodes on triage tags and link patients directly to a specific number to ensure that the patient is properly identified. It also allows trainees to transmit patient information to the incident command, hospital command center, and to the public health office enabling an integrated response.
Healthcare training at the CDP takes place at the Noble Training Facility which is the only facility solely dedicated to preparing the healthcare, public health, and environmental health communities for mass casualty response to disasters. Recently, 140 healthcare personnel, representing more than 25 Michigan hospitals, long term care facilities, EMS agencies, and fire departments attended training at the facility.
CDP expects to fully incorporate the patient tracking technology into training over the next six months and will be implemented incrementally during the upcoming Integrated Capstone Event when first responders will be role playing during a mass casualty incident.