Course Preventive Medicine in Humanitarian Emergencies

While not a part of the traditional emergency needs assessment, an evaluation of community health-care resources, including human resources, medical supplies, equipment, surgical capability, emergency department and primary care capacity and the condition of health-care buildings, is also an important part of the process following a disaster. From the preventive medicine standpoint, evaluation of the availability of vaccines and the condition of the cold chain is extremely important.

Evaluation of the health-care system requires pre-disaster knowledge of community resources. By joining with public health officials and disaster planning committees, pediatricians and other local physicians can be included in community health-care worker rosters and will learn where emergency medical supplies are stored. Organized plans for signaling an emergency and identifying a specific location to convene as a group would lead to rapid mobilization of all health-care workers in case of an emergency. Identifying additional areas for handling surge capacity and the staffing of these additional treatment areas is important. For example, with a pandemic influenza outbreak, current healthcare facilities can become overwhelmed. Identifying alternate care facilities in each community and regionally may be needed to meet demands. Predisaster planning by delegating responsibilities for assessing the condition of local hospitals and clinics and determining available medical supplies will avoid confusion and wasted efforts.