ABSTRACT

Managing a state's medical response to a major medical disaster involves tracking the relationships between various dynamical processes over a wide area involving many cities and counties. The trick is to see what is happening during an event that has occurred at a random moment in time, which generates an unknown number of casualties in unknown locations, and with many local emergency medical systems (EMS) responding that have damaged components. An EMS is a coordinated arrangement of resources which are organized to respond to medical emergencies, regardless of cause. A medical disaster occurs when the local EMS's normal triage standards, transport, transport, medical care, and local mutual aid resources are severely damaged and/or overwhelmed by victims. These conditions, which are developed more fully later, require substantial changes in the way emergency medical care is delivered.