Press Room: Press Releases

New Disaster Handbook Critical to Medical Response

(DES PLAINES, Ill., October 30, 2003) - The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) has released a disaster management pocket guide to help hospitals and healthcare workers prepare for and manage a disaster response.

Fundamentals of Disaster Management is the first publication to address both pre-hospital care as well as the continuum of care.

The pocket guide offers a coordinated all-hazards approach developed by a consortium of academic, state, and federal centers. The book is based on standards developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Society published the pocket guide to meet demand for a reference book that could quickly impart mandatory knowledge to all healthcare providers in the event of disaster. Easy-to-read flow charts, tables, and informational graphics are used to present critical information in an accessible format.

This reference guide combines the core knowledge and hands-on skills needed by all medical personnel - regardless of specialty - to respond effectively to natural or man-made disasters. The Society selected faculty authors from areas of the world that have experience with terrorism, natural disasters, and mass casualty events to ensure practical and useful information.

Fundamentals of Disaster Management is designed to help disaster personnel organize a disaster site and strategize treatment and flow of disaster victims. It also covers disaster management activities, such as designating a command center, streamlining communication with the media, and informing relatives of casualties. Contingencies such as facilities damage and patient transportation are also addressed.

The guide prepares disaster personnel to detect and treat anthrax, encephalitis, plague, smallpox, radiation exposure, and other biological toxins, as well as nerve and riot control agents.

Officials on all levels are concerned that hospitals do not have the capacity to treat the large number of patients associated with a bioterrorism attack, according to a recent study from the U.S. General Accounting Office. The study found:

• Fewer than 50 percent of hospitals have practiced disaster drills and simulations.
  
• Hospitals do not have the medical equipment necessary to handle mass casualties.

Written by leading experts and edited by J. Christopher Farmer, MD, FCCM, Edgar J. Jimenez, MD, FCCM, Daniel S. Taylor, MD, Janice L. Zimmerman, MD, FCCM, this definitive guide to disaster management will help increase effectiveness of any disaster-related response. The spiral-bound pocket guide repels water, stains and mud.

Fundamentals of Disaster Management

$58 nonmembers, $39 members
Publication Date: October 31, 2003 /148 pages

To order, visit the SCCM Bookstore or call SCCM Customer Service at (847) 827-6888.

For more information, contact Thomas Joseph, MPS, CAE at (847) 827-7282 or tjoseph@sccm.org.

The Society of Critical Care Medicine is the leading professional organization dedicated to ensuring excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care medicine. With over 11,000 members worldwide, the Society is the only professional organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of multidisciplinary, multiprofessional intensive care through excellence in patient care, professional education, public education, research and advocacy. Members of the Society include intensivists, critical care nurses, critical care pharmacists, clinical pharmacologists, respiratory care practitioners and other professionals with an interest in critical care, which may include physician assistants, social workers, dieticians, and members of the clergy.

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