Disaster modeling: medication resources required for disaster team response

Responses to disasters involve many factors beyond personnel, such as medical and non-medical equipment and supplies. When disaster teams respond, they must do so with sufficient amounts of medicine and supplies to manage all of the patients expected for several days before re-supply. In order for this process to be efficient and expedient, accurate and advanced planning for supplies needed by disaster workers is necessary. These supplies must provide for general medical care and for hazard-specific problems.

To develop a model that provides the framework for determining supply requirements for the National Disaster Medical System, Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, or other responding disaster teams in a civilian environment.

A community hospital was modeled to determine patient characteristics when presenting to an emergency department (ED), including patient demographics and chief complaint, medications administered during the ED visit and prescribed at discharge, and laboratory tests ordered to assess disaster team supply requirements. Data were downloaded from a patient tracking software package and abstracted from various hospital data information systems. Data from the community hospital were compared with data published from two hurricane disasters by members of the National Disaster Medical System.

To the extent possible, the model predicted the proportion of patient complaints and, therefore, the medicine and supplies needed for the management of these patients.

This model offers a first step in preparing disaster medical teams for deployment.