Rating Preparedness of Medical Trauma Directors

Level-1 trauma hospitals in Canada can do more to prepare for mass casualty events, states an article in the February 2011 issue of Canadian Medical Association (Gomez et al.). U.S.-based trauma hospitals may also find the article helpful in reviewing their emergency preparedness plans. The authors evaluated facility preparedness by surveying medical trauma directors on the following critical emergency preparedness characteristics:

While 83% of facilities had a disaster preparedness committee, many respondents indicated that it was not made up of appropriate stakeholders. The authors state that medical directors of trauma units should be involved in these committees, but only half the respondents said they were. The authors noted that some recent mass casualty events were greatly...