Edited by Dr J. Christopher Farmer
This series of articles in Critical Care has not been sponsored. All articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer review process overseen by the Series Editor, with final decisions made by the Editor in Chief. The Series Editor and Editor in Chief declare no competing interests.
There is a long-standing, broad assumption that hospitals will ably receive and efficiently provide comprehensive care to victims following a mass casualty event. Unfortunately, the majority of medical major i...
The development of modern intensive care units (ICUs) has allowed the survival of patients with advanced illness and injury, although at a cost of substantial infrastructure. Natural disasters and military ope...
Catastrophic disasters, particularly a pandemic of influenza, may force difficult allocation decisions when demand for mechanical ventilation greatly exceeds available resources. These situations demand integr...
Worst case scenarios for pandemic influenza planning in the US involve over 700,000 patients requiring mechanical ventilation. UK planning predicts a 231% occupancy of current level 3 (intensive care unit) bed...
Influenza A viruses have a wide host range for infection, from wild waterfowl to poultry to humans. Recently, the cross-species transmission of avian influenza A, particularly subtype H5N1, has highlighted the...
Over the past four years there have been 93 multiple-casualty terrorist attacks in Israel, 33 of them in Jerusalem. The Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center is the only Level I trauma center in Jerusalem ...
We recommend several actions that could improve hospitals' abilities to deliver critical care during epidemics involving large numbers of victims. In the absence of careful pre-event planning, demand for criti...
The Omagh bombing in August 1998 produced many of the problems documented in other major incidents. An initial imbalance between the demand and supply of clinical resources at the local hospital, poor informat...
Determine the effectiveness of decontamination, and perform thorough dry or wet decontamination, depending on the circumstances. Always remain cognizant of the fact that, even after decontamination has been co...
Disaster medical response has historically focused on the pre-hospital and initial treatment needs of casualties. In particular, the critical care component of many disaster response plans is incomplete. Equal...
Disaster management plans have traditionally been required to manage major traumatic events that create a large number of victims. Infectious diseases, whether they be natural (e.g. SARS [severe acute respirat...
At 07:39 on 11 March 2004, 10 terrorist bomb explosions occurred almost simultaneously in four commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, killing 177 people instantly and injuring more than 2000. There were 14 subseque...