BACKGROUND Recent occurrences of disaster events highlight the need for increased attention to improving students' knowledge of disaster readiness. Nursing education continues to struggle with the delivery of consistent, effective, and impactful teaching methods for disaster response. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of using a simulated mass casualty incident (MCI) and Web-based r...

Introduction: Logistic constraints on combat casualty care preclude traditional resuscitation strategies which can require volumes and weights 3 fold or greater than hemorrhaged volume. We present a review of quantitative analyses of clinical and animal data on small volume strategies using 1) hypertonic-hyperosmotic solutions (HHS); 2) hemoglobin based oxygen carriers (HBOCs) and 3) closed-loo...

Accessing the medullary space of the bone, offers a rapid, effective, and reasonably foolproof alternative to IV access. Newly introduced adult intraosseous (IO) technologies have been suggested as one means to improve success rate of emergency vascular access. The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine Report recommends IO infusion as the preferred initial vascular route for comba...

On Thursday 8 January 1998, a Czech Hip helicopter with 21 personnel on board crashed shortly after take off from Bos Krupa, northwest Bosnia. Seventeen casualties (including six with severe injuries) were airlifted from the scene for treatment at the British Hospital Squadron in Sipovo before aeromedical evacuation the next day to Prague, or discharge to their unit. This was the largest mass c...

The first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings reminds us of the critical importance of multiagency operational plans for high-threat civilian trauma response. Through the commitment of the many national and local leaders, we are more prepared than we were in 2013. Still, we must remain vigilant and continue to drive forward. The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and ...

BACKGROUND Frequencies of reasons for encounter (RFEs) in emergency primary care out-of-hours (OOH) services are relevant for planning of capacities as well as to target the training of staff at casualty clinics. We aimed to present frequencies of RFEs in the different organ systems, and to identify the most frequent RFEs at different urgency levels. METHODS We analyzed data on RFEs in Norweg...

Maintenance of a safe and stable health care infrastructure is critical to an effective mass casualty disaster response. Both secondary contamination during chemical disasters and hospital-associated infections during epidemic illness can pose substantial threats to achieving this goal. Understanding basic principles of decontamination and infection control during responses to chemical and biol...