Improving Medical Disaster Response Through Tools and Expertise

Ensuring an effective response to the medical consequences of a disaster, whether it is a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a pandemic event, presents health and medical officials with a host of challenges. At all levels, officials must analyze potential medical demands, assess medical capabilities, and identify and allocate critical resources. They must develop and exercise plans and ensure that personnel are well trained to act collaboratively, quickly, and effectively. For bioterrorism events and pandemics in particular, officials must fully understand the consequences and evolution of infectious disease transmission to make the best decisions about how to protect the public in the event of an outbreak or attack.

IEM’s multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals, medical researchers, and modelers has worked with several offices within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the

• Office of Preparedness and Emergency Operations (OPEO)
• Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

We have supported the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state and local emergency management agencies, public health departments, hospitals, and regional medical systems. For all of these customers, we help improve healthcare emergency preparedness for natural disasters; pandemics; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) events; and other health emergencies. We provide services ranging from unique planning strategies and focused training and exercises to simulation modeling and epidemiological analysis.