Ritu Sarin

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center | BIDMC · Department of Emergency Medicine

Introduction: In 2009, the Institute of Medicine published guidelines for implementation of Crisis Standards of Care (CSC) at the state level in the United States (US). Based in part on the then concern for H1N1 pandemic, there was a recognized need for additional planning at the state level to maintain health system preparedness and conventional...

Mass casualty incidents related to blast injuries, from both intentional and unintentional events, can quickly overwhelm an unprepared emergency department, leading to increased patient morbidity and mortality. The recommended approach in organization and operations management is to employ the Hospital Incident Command System to leverage the whole...

Objectives Disaster Medicine (DM) education for Emergency Medicine (EM) residents is highly variable due to time constraints, competing priorities, and program expertise. The investigators’ aim was to define and prioritize DM core competencies for EM residency programs through consensus opinion of experts and EM professional organization representa...

Background Human stampedes (HS) may result in mass casualty incidents (MCI) that arise due to complex interactions between individuals, collective crowd, and space, which have yet to be described from a physics perspective. HS events were analyzed using basic physics principles to better understand the dynamic kinetic variables that give rise to HS...

Introduction Opioid overdose deaths in the United States are increasing. Time to restoration of ventilation is critical. Rapid bystander administration of opioid antidote (naloxone) is an effective interim response but is historically constrained by legal restrictions. Aim To review and contextualize development of legislation facilitating laypers...

Introduction Children represent a particularly vulnerable population in disasters. Disaster Risk Reduction refers to a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and reducing risks of disaster through sets of interventions towards disaster causes and population vulnerabilities. Disaster Risk Reduction through the education of the population, an...

Introduction Road traffic collisions (RTC) are the leading cause of preventable death among those aged 15–29 years worldwide. More than 1.2 million lives are lost each year on roads. Ninety percent of these deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries. The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) proclaimed the period from 2011-2020 the...

Introduction In the past five decades, the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been subject to several types of terrorist attacks, with most committed by local terrorist organizations. However, there have also been attacks by international terrorist groups. Internationally, terrorist attacks are increasing in both frequency and comp...

Study/Objective: To review the documented uses of micro- chips in the medical field, and explore their possible utilisation in the disaster medicine environment. Background: Microchips have a number of non-medical uses in varied fields including banking, retail and the veterinary sectors. In some countries it is mandatory to chip domestic pets to e...

Study/Objective: To determine what instruments and methods Boston hospitals and hospital systems use to perform Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA). Background: Assessment of hazard vulnerability is a critical stage in the disaster preparation cycle. This process determines the relative priority of each disaster subtype to the organization, and pro...

Study/Objective: To quantify the frequency and intention with which “stampede” is used to describe types of Mass Gathering (MG) disasters. Background: Hazard vulnerability analysis would identify “human stampedes” as high probability events at MGs. Over 200 “stampedes” have occurred in the past 30 years. At the 2015 Hajj, at least 2,000 pilgrims di...

Study/Objective: A study of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) utilization for road traffic accidents (RTA) in southern India is proposed to determine 1) proportion of victims trans- ported by ambulance and 2) crude morbidity and mortality rates in patients brought by ambulance versus other modalities. Background: In 2005, an EMS “1-0-8 Ambulance” wa...

Study/Objective: To review the physical fitness requirements for disaster responders serving on Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs) in the United States. Background: The United States has trained and credentialed teams of disaster responders which may be rapidly deployed to assist with search and rescue efforts, and to provide essential medic...

Study/Objective: To determine what instruments and methods Massachusetts hospitals and hospital systems use to perform Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA). Background: Assessment of hazard vulnerability is a critical stage in the disaster preparation cycle. This process determines the relative priority of each disaster subtype to the organization a...

Study/Objective: To perform a qualitative comparison of instruments used for hazard vulnerability analysis of hospitals. Background: Analysis of hazard vulnerability is the process by which a hospital determines the relative priority of each potential threat to the organization when allocating resources for disaster preparation and mitigation. Whil...

Study/Objective: The recovery period of a disaster often requires re-establishing health care and maintaining continuity of care for a large number of victims. This means recruiting primary care physicians who are preferably trained to provide healthcare to all ages, as well as having the ability to provide treatment covering a wide range of specia...

Study/Objective: To review the literature of pre-deployment Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) interventions for disaster responders, to minimize acute stress response, depres- sion and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Background: ‘Mindfulness’ is derived from Buddhist medita- tion practice. Mindfulness programs have been shown to impr...

Study/Objective: The goal of this study is to differentiate between the various Disaster Medicine (DM) fellowships in the United States (US) by analyzing objective data that include: length of program, prerequisites, disciplines offered, curricula taught, and utilization of blended or hybrid educational mod- alities. This will be helpful to applica...

Background The increase in natural and man-made disasters occurring worldwide places Emergency Medicine (EM) physicians at the forefront of responding to these crises. Despite the growing interest in Disaster Medicine, it is unclear if resident training has been able to include these educational goals. Hypothesis This study surveys EM residencies...

Background: Disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 have brought the relevance of professionalization of disaster response and crisis standards of care to the forefront of emergency and disaster medicine. In 2009 the Institute of Medicine developed guidance to assist health officials in creating standards of car...

Study/Objective: This study seeks to provide details on how many states are publically acknowledging the process of devel- oping crisis standards of care, how many have legal guidance for their practitioners, and what care areas are commonly addressed. Background: Disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 have bro...

Study/Objective: This study seeks to provide an overview on the status of implementing crisis standards of care in the international health community. Background: Disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 have brought the relevance of crisis standards of care to the forefront of emergency and disaster medi- cine....

Study/Objective: To demonstrate effective strategies to improve production for the novice researcher. Background: Many undergraduate programs now include formalised teaching in Medical informatics however such cur- ricula do not always include the technical electronic (no prosaic) writing skills that the novice researcher requires. Established or e...

Study/Objective: To evaluate the AMS, observe and docu- ment the flow of this new disaster resource, as well as the interactions of the National Guard with the local disaster personnel. Background: Alaska Shield (AS2014) 2014: multi- disciplinary drill emulating 2nd largest recorded earthquake (magnitude 9.2) and resulting tsunami on March 27, 1964...

Study Objectives The increase in natural and man-made disasters occurring worldwide and the associated widespread destruction places emergency medicine (EM) physicians at the forefront of responding to these crises. Despite the growing political and educational interest in disaster medicine, it is unclear if resident training has been able to inclu...

Study Objective There are numerous mass casualty triage systems employed in the United States that have been assessed in various settings. There has been limited analysis of how these field triage methods correlate with hospital nursing triage once patients arrive at a facility. This study looked at the correlation of triage levels of victims in a...

Pain after spinal cord injury (SCI) may be sympathetically maintained. As a preliminary investigation of this hypothesis, we report experiments using Sympathetic Skin Response (SSR) and Skin Conductance Response (SCR) as modalities for testing sympathetic cholinergic integrity in two patients with thoracic spinal cord injury. The presence of a meas...

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