Fundamental Disaster Management

Fundamental Disaster Management (FDM) builds the foundation for critical care practitioners to better provide life-sustaining critical care to critically ill or injured victims of disasters. FDM equips critical care professionals with the expertise to manage in-hospital response to large-scale disasters and the resultant patient surge. In particular, critical care response to victims of chemical inhalations, conventional explosions, natural disasters, epidemics, radiological exposures and structure fires are presented.

Using a combined approach of didactic sessions and hands-on skills stations, participants explore major components of critical care disaster response. Skills stations include Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for critical care and operating alternative positive pressure ventilation equipment.

The intended FDM audience includes critical care health professionals such as pharmacists, respiratory care professionals, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians. Also included are persons who have successfully completed the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) course and who are expected to have significant critical care responsibilities during an emergency.

FDM Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the core structure and functions of disaster incident management and describe how the critical care response is coordinated by and interfaces with incident management.
   
2. List the types of events that are most likely to require a critical care response and describe the anticipated critical care needs of the affected people.
   
3. Explain the significant changes in organization, staffing, and responsibility that may improve the provision of critical care during a mass casualty incident.
   
4. Describe the guiding principles for triage and allocation of scarce critical care resources during a disaster.
   
5. Demonstrate how to set up and troubleshoot alternative positive pressure ventilation equipment such as the mechanical ventilators maintained by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Strategic National Stockpile.
   
6. Recognize the emergency situations that require the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)/environmental controls while caring for critically ill victims. 

  

 Katrina Response: Caring for Evacuees
Two Society members discuss their experiences treating evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, the level of preparedness they saw within their hospitals and what lessons they will take from this disaster.

 Interview with Society member Barbara McLean, MN, CCRN, CRNP, FCCM
Interview with Society member Barbara McLean, MN, CCRN, CRNP, FCCM, a nurse intensivist from Atlanta, Georgia, who spent 24 hours working in the Houston Astrodome and George R. Brown Convention Center on Monday, September 5.