Emergency Departments and Pandemic

U.S. Handling of Pandemic-Level Mass Fatality Event A pandemic is classified as an event that takes place across a wide geographic area and has the capacity to affect an exceptionally high percentage of the population. A mass fatality event usually generates numerous casualties to an extent that clinical personnel, emergency services, and referral systems work collaboratively to offer adequate and timely response.

The United States has experienced some pandemic-level mass fatality event in its history such as the 1918 pandemic influenza that led to the death of over 650,000 people across the country. Since the Civil War, the United States has not experienced a pandemic-level mass casualty or fatality event. While the 9/11 attacks was a tragedy with far reaching impacts, it was not necessarily a pandemic-level mass fatality event. Actually, the closest the country has come to a mass fatality event is during the flu season, which usually utilizes its available resources.

Despite the lack of a pandemic-level mass fatality event in its recent history, the United States' preparedness and capability to respond to such an event has attracted considerable attention among policymakers, government officials, and emergency responders. This concern is largely because of increased vulnerability to incidents and events that could generate a pandemic within the country. In light of existing policies and practices in responding to disasters, the United States is not well-prepared to handle a pandemic-level mass fatality event.

Generally, the United States is ill-prepared to handle a pandemic-level mass fatality event as evidenced in the nation's current approaches to mitigation, planning, and responding to emergencies. This position is demonstrated by the fact that emergency departments and personnel within the country usually divert incoming patients to other facilities when carrying out routine operations and/or when responding to emergencies (Hopmeier, Carmona & Noji, 2003).

For instance, recent reports by GAO have indicated that 2 out of 3 healthcare facilities within the country ask for ambulances to be diverted at certain points when responding to or handling an emergency. Moreover, 10% of emergency departments in the country have reportedly diverted incoming patients for over 20% of the year. The other reason that shows the country's ill-preparedness to handle a pandemic-level mass fatality event is the overall inflexibility and low surge capacity in emergency preparedness, mitigation, and response.

The overall inflexibility and low surge capacity in the country's emergency departments implies that these personnel are incapable of dealing with such an event. In addition, this also means that healthcare facilities throughout the country are unable to handle incoming patients in the aftermath of a pandemic-level mass fatality event. Third, the country usually utilizes ad-hoc response to an emergency, which is unable to handle the aftermath of a pandemic-level mass fatality event.

Ad-hoc response is characterized by standard care, which is unsuitable for a pandemic-level mass fatality event because such an incident requires adequate care or treatment. Sufficient care or treatment means clinical care that offers the most good for the significant number of population under severe conditions and/or operating in limited resources. This implies that the nation's response to a pandemic-level mass fatality event can be enhanced through shift from standard of care to sufficient care/treatment.

In this case, emergency departments should be adequately prepared to manage additional diseases or deaths brought by such an event (Ohio.