The American Society of Anesthesiologists announced the release of a new resource for hospitals, physicians and operating room personnel - the Operating Room Mass Casualty Management checklist. The checklist includes step-by-step instructions and outlines specific tasks that should be completed upon being alerted of a mass casualty situation.
After months of coordination between the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate and the New York Police Department (NYPD) Counter Terrorism Division, the NYPD conducted an active shooter training exercise, which tested its training and proficiency and incorporated several commercial technologies that could benefit during future emergencies.
An algorithm inspired by a popular song-matching app is helping Stanford scientists find previously overlooked earthquakes in large databases of ground-motion measurements. They call their algorithm Fingerprint And Similarity Thresholding (FAST), and it could transform how seismologists detect quakes that do not register when analyzed by conventional methods.
Created by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in partnership with the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive) Command at the beginning of 2015, a new program called Scientist in the Foxhole embeds scientists who work on chemical and biological solutions with the warfighters who actually use them once they are fielded.
Emergency responders face an increasing number of calls involving people with behavioral and mental health issues. To deal effectively and safely with these individuals, responders must be able to recognize signs of mental distress, apply proven techniques for de-escalating potentially dangerous situations and make appropriate referrals for them to obtain mental healthcare.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of pegfilgrastim (trade name Neulasta) to increase survival of people with acute radiation syndrome, which will improve access to the drug in the event of a public health emergency such as a nuclear power plant accident or terrorist attack.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Fluad, the first seasonal influenza vaccine containing an adjuvant. Adjuvants are incorporated into some vaccine formulations to enhance or direct the immune response of the vaccinated individual. Fluad is approved for the prevention of seasonal influenza in people 65 years of age and older.
In the past year, Ebola has made headlines throughout the healthcare community, causing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for protecting healthcare personnel to evolve. DQE has added a new convenient, practical PPE kit that follows the new CDC guidelines. DQE now provides two preassembled, blood and virus protection kits - the SafePaq and the SafePaq Plus.
A new report issued by the United Nations (UN) Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) shows that over the past 20 years, 90 percent of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heat waves, droughts, and other weather-related events.
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate's National Urban Security Technology Laboratory (NUSTL) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demonstrated new technology developments that will enable more effective radiological decontamination, by containing contamination and mitigating the radiation hazards.
