Quick questions: A nuclear incident has occurred in your community and people are going to come to you for help. Do you know which medical issues you should focus on first? Or which steps need to be taken immediately after an incident to best protect the public? Or what resources might be available to help?
Before you answer “no” to any of those questions, download a copy of the newly released Decision Maker’s Guide: Medical Planning and Response for a Nuclear Detonation.
An effective medical response and an infrastructure prepared to protect itself from fallout could save tens of thousands of lives following device nuclear incident. During the response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan over seven years ago, integration of large amounts of complex information and evidence-based guidance into real-time decision making and response was shown to be nearly impossible without direct contact between leaders and subject matter experts.
Fortunately, not many people were exposed to radiation following the Fukushima disaster in 2011. However, the response to that incident identified the need for a “to-the-point” guide for upper-level decisions makers, including government officials, emergency managers and planners. That guide is now available. Let’s learn from the challenges during the Fukushima response seven years ago, and not place ourselves in a similar situation.
The Guide (or the DMG) is meant for senior operational responders, emergency managers, public health advisors, healthcare officials, government officials, and other policy and decision-makers to assist preparedness and response decision making by providing readily accessible information that quickly describes what to do. The DMG is based on critical scientific and medical aspects of a nuclear incident as well as the response organization and resources anticipated to be required or available during a response.
The DMG is released in collaboration with Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM). REMM is a resource for medical practitioners who may not typically treat radiation injuries to provide guidance about clinical diagnosis and treatment of radiation injury during radiological and nuclear emergencies. The platform provides just-in-time, evidence-based, usable information with sufficient background and context to make complex issues understandable to help them administer the most appropriate care during a disaster.
As an informational resource and practical tool, the DMG presents essential background information that provides the “why” behind critical issues and decisions that must be made in the complex response to a nuclear detonation. To ensure that vital information is quickly accessible when needed, the DMG outlines key issues and explains why those issues are critical to best protecting people exposed during large-scale radiation incidents. This approach allows responders to focus on what’s actually important – saving lives.
To do this, the DMG introduces the innovative “Dynamic Navigation” feature that takes complex scientific and operational information and translates it into a question-based, time-phased structure so that decision-makers can know what to do and what to anticipate during each phase of an incident. With this innovation, medical response decision-makers, planners, and leaders do not require expertise in radiation response and the DMG points them to the questions they need to ask and provides answers in the timeframes required for success. This helps ensure that the most impactful decisions can be made during each critical time interval to save lives after a radiological or nuclear disaster.
The “Dynamic Navigation” feature is also structured to layer information so that the first sections are 1 and 2 page summaries of specific topics or action items highlighting decision making considerations, key information, and “need to know” facts. Each summary provides links to in-depth guides where details and background information can be found in addition to links to additional details and references if readers want to dive deeper into a topic.
The DMG is an updated and more usable version of existing guidance found in Medical Planning and Response for a Nuclear Detonation: A Practical Guide. The DMG can be downloaded as a fully functional PDF for desktop, handheld, and mobile use, used on-line, or printed. A future DMG Version 3 will feature additional updated information as well a full web-based version.
Even if you think that as a medical response planner, responder, or leader you wouldn’t need to use the DMG, downloading it now ensures you will have it in case you need it. You can also download Mobile REMM, which provides a dose estimator, triaging tools, and more. Having critical resources at your fingertips in the event of a radiological or nuclear disaster can help you make better decisions that save the lives when seconds count.
