Hi. This is David Sugerman, team lead for the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention here at CDC.
Thanks for joining today. Also in the hangout with me today is Scott Sasser.
Good morning, everyone.
Really pleased here to launch our Blast Injury mobile application.
The hangout is being recorded and will be available to you and others at a later date
both the audio and the visual components.
Please visit the iTunes app store so you can download the application.
And you can follow along with me now or in the future when you go back to the recorded event.
CDC has found that health professionals and emergency managers
need the ability to rapidly access information and resources about preparation for
and response to terrorist use of explosives or other explosion-related emergencies.
By being prepared and learning how to respond to terrorist bombings
we can minimize the health consequences of terrorism and other explosion-related emergencies.
For the past 10 years, CDC has been committed to improving clinical
and systems preparedness and response to explosions.
In collaboration with partners in the field, CDC developed a broad range of topic-specific fact sheets
and online courses on the systems management and clinical treatment of blast injuries
to help public safety professionals, hospital clinicians and administration, and public health systems
prepare for and respond to terrorist bombings.
These materials were disseminated both nationally and internationally
as part of CDC’s mass casualty preparedness and response efforts.
I’d like to highlight two specific documents that CDC developed.
The first document is called, “In a Moment’s Notice: Surge Capacity for Terrorist Bombings”
that highlights challenges in providing clinical care for multiple patients following a terrorist bombing
and offers detailed discipline-specific information to meet those challenges.
The second document is “Interim Planning Guidance for Preparedness and Response to
a Mass Casualty Event Resulting from a Terrorist Use of Explosives”.
The purpose of this interim guidance is to provide information and insight to assist public policy
and health system leaders in preparing for and responding to a terrorist bombing event.
This document provides practical information to promote comprehensive mass casualty care
in the event of a terrorist bombing event.
I welcome you to download these resources from CDC’s emergency.cdc.gov website.
The focus of today’s discussion is a new tool, the CDC Blast Injury mobile application.
This application was designed to help prepare all health professionals who will assist with bombing victims
through medical care or coordination of medical systems.
We hope it will help you as a health professional
to get ready both in advance of and during a terrorist bombing or other mass casualty event.
I’d like to now introduce Scott Sasser who will be providing a current assessment
of global bombing events and domestic threats.
He’ll also talk about what health professionals need to prepare
and how the application can help them.
Thank you, David and good morning once again.
I’d like to start by briefly discussing the global context of terrorist events
and how the new CDC Blast Injury mobile application can help us prepare and respond better.
As you all know, the ongoing threat of terrorist events presents significant operational challenges.
The scenes are often dynamic and chaotic, there are multiple injured patients,
some with unique patterns of injuries not familiar to most civilian clinicians.
There are difficulties in gathering accurate information and communicating that information
and there are surge capacity issues as patients begin to arrive in our healthcare system.
In its landmark report on the future of emergency care in the United States,
the Institute of Medicine noted that bombings are the most common form of terrorist attack.
Two recent events highlight this fact: the failed New York City Times Square bombing from 2010
and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
We, as public health professionals, clinicians working in health care systems, and first responders
must collaborate to adequately prepare and respond to these events.
Many useful lessons can be obtained from prior events, both domestic and international.
For instance, in the Madrid train bombings in 2004, there were 10 detonations on four trains
resulting in 177 immediate deaths and over 2000 people injured.
Of the patients who required hospital care, 50% went to two hospitals closest to the event
when there were 15 hospitals available in Madrid.
This resulted in a surge of 272 patients, arriving in two and a half hours at one hospital.
Key lessons learned from that event involved issues surrounding
surge capacity, casualty distribution, and communications.
Our planning often assumes the best case scenario. We assume that many things will happen,
such as incident command, organized patient care and casualty distribution,
and that we will receive accurate information communicated from the field.
However, reality often does not mesh with these assumptions.
First responders are often working in a large, uncontrolled environment requiring lots of resources.
Communication is often difficult and accurate information not readily available.
They may be caring for patients with unique patterns of injuries who are critically injured.
The surge capacity issues that our health care system, which is already operating at capacity, are well known.
To save lives and reduce injuries in these events, we must be proactive
and we must learn from the experiences of others.
The new CDC Blast Injury mobile application helps us do that.
The mobile application combines all of CDC's Blast Injury information into a mobile format.
It provides clear, concise, up-to-date information that can be readily accessed and provide decisional guidance.
The app serves two purposes: one, it can be used as a training and education tool
providing background and refresher information.
Second, it can be accessed and be readily accessible at the time of an event
when there may be mobile network instability or cellular outages.
The new mobile application is available in the App store today.
Thank you, Scott.
Thanks, Scott. I would like to show you a brief demonstration,
if you've been able to download the application.
You can follow along. There are four major sections.
Those include Understanding Blasts and Events, Assessing and Treating Blast Injuries,
Tools and Resources, and Quick Reference Guide.
Two of the main sections of the application, Understanding Blasts and Explosive Events
and Assessing and Treating Blast Injuries include detailed information for review in advance of an event.
You can learn essential information about population management during bombing events,
types of bombs, and the resulting injuries.
Read about special considerations that are specific to your job.
You can also learn how to assess and treat specific blast injuries in body systems
such as the head, torso, and musculoskeletal systems.
The application provides details on assessment and treatment of injuries in specific groups of people
such as children, pregnant women, and older adults.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the information for specific body systems.
The section about head injuries includes guidance on eye injuries,
tympanic membrane rupture, traumatic brain injury, and disaster behavioral health.
The torso injuries section includes blast lung injuries and abdominal injuries.
The musculoskeletal trauma section addresses extremity and soft tissue injuries, crush injuries, and burns.
For each injury, content addresses clinical presentation, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
If you would like to learn more,
the application also includes a collection of Tools and materials about blast injuries.
Please subscribe to an RSS feed or download information to read at a later time.
Finally, in the event you are responding to a terrorist bombing,
take 2 minutes to scan through the Quick Reference Guide
for the most important information you need to do your job.
Let's take a closer look at some of the information for specific body systems
including eye injuries, as an example.
For each injury, content addresses clinical presentation, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
I'd like to acknowledge Terica Scott, our health communication specialist here at CDC
as well as the TIDE partners and grantees in developing the content for this application
and ICF International who's developed the web application.
Thank you so much and we're open at this point to questions.
Okay. Thanks, everyone for joining.
And, please, don't forget to download the CDC Blast Injury App today.
It's available free at the iTunes store.