Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association (GDAHA), Greater Miami Valley EMS Council (GMVEMSC), Dayton MMRS, and others have been working to improve communications during mass casualty incidents (MCIs). The group produced a “job aid” to assist both EMS and hospitals with the “comm” process. Both the process and the job aid have been tested during multiple full scale exercises. They are functional and available for use.
Now we’re taking the next steps: training and exercise. There are two trainings, one for hospital personnel (in the box at the bottom of the page) and one for EMS (box at the top of the page). Watch the video (about 45 minutes), take a look at the handouts, and take the quiz, and you’ll receive a certificate for 1.5 hours of continuing education. You can find either training here: http://gmvemsc.org/training-mcicomm.html
Starting on September 26th, we’ll exercise the MCI communications processes. Full information on the exercises is in the training. They are called Quarterly Triage Day (QTD) Drills. Beginning with the first QTD, for 24 hours every quarter, every patient in every Emergency Department will get a Triage Ribbon and a GREEN Triage Drill Tag (please do not use White “Live” Triage Tags for drills). Obviously, this starts with EMS, but hospitals will place ribbons and tags on walk in patients.
What do you need to do to be ready?
· Make sure your ambulance/medic unit or Emergency Department have packages of GREEN Drill Tags. For EMS, those have been delivered to your County Emergency Management Agencies (EMAs). Hospitals received the Drill Tags and other materials through the GDAHA Domestic Preparedness Coalition.
· Have all EMS and ED personnel watch the MCI Communications Training using the link above.
· Have a copy of the real-world MCI Communications Job Aids (we distributed copies electronically, and for EMS agencies, through the County EMAs).
· Have copies of the first QTD Drill MCI Communications Job Aids. Both Job Aids can be downloaded from the same link as the training.
By the way, EMAs also have new larger rings to hold the tear-off sections of the Triage Tags for EMS (the rings should go in the Transport Officer Clipboards along with a copy of the real-world MCI Communications Job Aid). The clipboards already have a small ring for what replaced the “dog-ear” tear-offs on old tags, but people have said those rings are too small. The new rings are much larger.
We also still have plenty of the Training (Blue) Tags. Any agency doing MCI or triage training can have all they want – contact your EMA or Dayton MMRS.
David N. Gerstner
MMRS/RMRS/EP Coordinator
Department of Fire I City of Dayton
300 N. Main St. I Dayton, Ohio 45402
Office 937.333.4551 I Fax 937.333.4561 I www.daytonohio.gov
24/7 Pager: 937-227-8705 or E-mail 9372278705@archwireless.net
david.gerstner@daytonohio.gov I http://DaytonMMRS.org