George W. Contreras
New York Medical College, USA
Title: Nursing Disaster Preparedness for Mass Casualty Incidents: Lessons Learned from a Multi-dimensional Approach in New York
Biography:
Professor Contreras is a healthcare professional and established educator with over twenty-eight years of experience in the fields of emergency medical services, disaster management, public health, higher education, international disaster response, and health services administration. He currently serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Disaster Medicine at New York Medical College, Assistant Professor at The Institute of Public Health and Assistant Director of the Advanced Certificate in Emergency Management. Prior to his current role, he served as tenured Associate Professor and Director of Allied Health at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, the largest urban public education system in the United States. He is adjunct professor at Metropolitan College of New York’s (MCNY) Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Emergency and Disaster Management. He is also adjunct Associate Professor in the Master of Science in Emergency Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Abstract:
Recent mass shooting incident events such as the El Paso Walmart, Dayton, Gilroy Garlic Festival, Las Vegas concert, Orlando Pulse nightclub, Parkland high school, and the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church remind us the importance of hospitals’ preparedness in order to initially manage a large number of patients in a short period of time. Prehospital care has methods to manage a large number of patients and assess their transport priority through various triage models such as START, SALT and JUMPSTART. Upon arrival to the hospital, however, clinicians (physicians and nurses) must then quickly determine how to best assess and provide life-saving interventions based on limited immediate resources (e.g. staff, ventilators, operating rooms, patient treatment areas) available to them. All hospital staff need to be prepared to act quickly to receive a large number of patients at any time.