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Mass-Casualty, Terrorist Bombings: Implications for Emergency Department and Hospital Emergency Response (Part II)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Pinchas Halpern ,
Ming-Che Tsai ,
Jeffrey L. Arnold ,
Edita Stok  and
Gurkan Ersoy
Pinchas Halpern
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel
Ming-Che Tsai
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency and Trauma Service, National Cheng-Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan, Republic of, China
Jeffrey L. Arnold*
Affiliation:
Yale New Haven Health System, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Edita Stok
Affiliation:
Ministry of Health, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Gurkan Ersoy
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Dokuz Eylul University Medical Center, Izmir, Turkey
*
Medical Director, Yale New Haven Center for Terrorism and Emergency Preparedness, 1 Church Street, 5th Floor New Haven, CT 06510 USA, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article reviews the implications of mass-casualty, terrorist bombings for emergency department (ED) and hospital emergency responses. Several practical issues are considered, including the performance of a preliminary needs assessment, the mobilization of human and material resources, the use of personal protective equipment, the organization and performance of triage, the management of explosion-specific injuries, the organization of patient flow through the ED, and the efficient determination of patient disposition. As long as terrorists use explosions to achieve their goals, mass-casualty, terrorist bombings remain a required focus for hospital emergency planning and preparedness.

Keywords

blast injury; bombingcapacitydisasterdisaster managementdistribution, secondaryemergencyemergency departmentemergency managementepidemiologyexplosionsmass casualty incidentterrorismterrorist bombing
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 3: Terrorism-II: Special Reports , September 2003 , pp. 235 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2003

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