JOURNAL ARTICLE
REVIEW
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Hazardous materials. Disaster medical planning and response.

Hazardous materials offer a variety of unique challenges to emergency personnel. These agents have immense economic impact, but when mishandled, they become notorious for turning contained accidents into disasters involving the entire community. During a hazmat accident, the victims often ignore the rules of the disaster plan by seeking out the nearest hospital for medical care, regardless of that institution's capabilities. Health care workers rushing to the aid of contaminated individuals, without taking appropriate precautions (i.e., donning PPE), potentially make themselves victims. Disaster preparedness requires planning, policy, and procedure development, hazard analysis, training, and the availability of personal protective equipment for all responding personnel. Presently, the level of hazmat preparedness varies greatly among different hospitals, EMS and fire services, and disaster response teams. These differences in hazmat preparedness can be linked to a variety of factors (lack of awareness, funding, and support) and controversies (types of PPE and level of training required) which have prevented the establishment of a national hazmat policy for most of these organizations. Despite these difficulties, emergency departments continue to be the primary provider of care to contaminated individuals. As a result, emergency physicians must work with their hospital to implement a hazmat decontamination program in order to appropriately care for these individuals. The appendix to this article presents a list of recommendations for hospital hazmat preparedness. It is modeled after existing CDC and OSHA guidelines.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app