I am at the National Disaster Medical System Training Summit in Tennessee, where I was invited to give a series of lectures, so I thought I would dedicate today's column to discuss the NDMS system and let everyone know who we are and what we do.
NDMS is a nationwide federally coordinated system under the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated to making our nation more prepared for a disaster - whether it is a natural or man-made one. Our mission is "to design, develop and maintain a national capability to deliver quality medical care to the victims of - and responders to - a domestic disaster." NDMS provides state-of-the art medical care under any conditions at a disaster site, in transit from the impacted area, and into participating definitive care facilities.
NDMS is made up of more than 8,000 dedicated civilian personnel who are organized into specialized teams that focus on particular areas of a disaster response. These people are your neighbors and your friends. They may be physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, pharmacists, infectious disease specialists/epidemiologists, veterinarians, emergency medical services personnel, morticians, environmental health specialists, dentists, health care administrators, State and local public health officials, emergency managers, emergency planners or public health workers who come from your state and even from your town. These are people who give their time to train and learn so they can be prepared to deploy when called upon by the federal government to support state and local authorities in response to a disaster.
It is my privilege to serve as supervising medical officer on one of the disaster medical assist teams, a NDMS team of professional medical personnel supported by a logistical and administrative staff whose mission is to provide medical care to victims of a disaster. Some of the other teams that make up NDMS include:
- National medical response team (NMRT) that provides decontamination and medical care to victims of a large scale release of hazardous material, whether it be an accidental incident or a terrorist event.
- Disaster mortuary operational response team (DMORT) that helps identify victims of a disaster and provide mortuary services.
- National veterinary response team (NVRT) that provides care for animal victims of a disaster.
- Federal coordinating centers (FCCs) that coordinate the participation of the over 1,800 civilian hospitals that are part of the country's overall medical response to a disaster, providing definitive care after the field teams have done their job.
- National pharmacy response team (NPRT) that coordinates the huge job of having sufficient medications and vaccinations available and administered as part of our disaster response efforts.
- National nurse response team (NNRT) which is a specialty DMAT team that can respond when large numbers of highly trained nurses are specifically needed, such as when a mass vaccination campaign may be needed.
- Specialty teams - such as pediatric, burn, crush medicine, mental health and joint management teams - whose members are ready to deploy when their specialty is required.
