Building Clinical Care Capacity for Patients With Special Pathogens in Advance of the Next Outbreak.

In response to the growing number of outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, the US Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has embarked on a plan to improve and expand special pathogen patient care capabilities. To achieve this, ASPR is developing a coordinated network of Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (RESPTCs) to serve as state-of-the-art facilities staffed by a highly trained workforce to care for and manage special pathogen patients across the lifespan. The RESPTC network represents the operational arm of a broader US National Special Pathogen System of care to prevent and prepare for the next infectious disease outbreak.

District of Columbia Emergency Healthcare Coalition Burn Mass Casualty Plan: Development to Exercise Date.

The District of Columbia Emergency Healthcare Coalition (DC EHC) brought together a Burn Task Force to tackle the issue of mass burn care in a metropolitan area in light of limited local burn center resources. This article outlines the development of the mass burn care plan. Using a tiered treatment approach, mass burn victims would be transported first to burn centers within the area, followed by nonburn center trauma centers, and finally to nonburn and nontrauma center acute care facilities.

Development of an "all-hazards" hospital disaster preparedness training course utilizing multi-modality teaching.

Objectives: The objectives of the study were to develop and evaluate an "all-hazards" hospital disaster preparedness training course that utilizes a combination of classroom lectures, skills sessions, tabletop sessions, and disaster exercises to teach the principles of hospital disaster preparedness to hospital-based employees.

Methods: Participants attended a two-day, 16-hour course, entitled Hospital Disaster Life Support (HDLS). The course was designed to address seven core competencies of disaster training for healthcare workers.

Health care facility and community strategies for patient care surge capacity.

Recent terrorist and epidemic events have underscored the potential for disasters to generate large numbers of casualties. Few surplus resources to accommodate these casualties exist in our current health care system. Plans for "surge capacity" must thus be made to accommodate a large number of patients.