EMS incident management: emergency medical logistics

If you had to get x amount of supplies to point A or point B, or both, in 10 minutes, how would you do it? The answer lies in the following steps: 1. Develop a logistics plan. 2. Use emergency management as a partner agency for developing your logistics plan. 3. Implement a push logistics system by determining what supplies/medications and equipment are important. 4. Place mass casualty/disaster caches at key locations for rapid deployment. Have medication/fluid caches available at local hospitals. 5. Develop and implement command caches for key supervisors and managers. 6. Anticipate the logistics requirements of a terrorism/tactical violence event based on a community threat assessment. 7. Educate the public about preparing a BLS family disaster kit. 8. Test logistics capabilities at disaster exercises. 9. Budget for logistics needs. 10. Never underestimate the importance of logistics. When logistics support fails, the EMS system fails.