How will patients be evacuated, received, and transported to the participating hospitals?
At the disaster site, patients will be stabilized by NDMS response teams for transport. Patients who can be treated on site will be released without medical evacuation. In most cases, patients who require evacuation will be evacuated by the DoD aeromedical evacuation system. Evacuated patients will be regulated by FCC areas. At the airport of the NDMS reception area, patients will be met by a local medical team that will sort, assess, and match those patients to participating hospitals, according to procedures developed by local authorities and the local area's NDMS FCC. Patients will be transported to participating hospitals using locally organized ground and air transport.

Advantages of Participating in NDMS
Although the NDMS is designed to respond to major disasters, there are immediate regional benefits to States and local communities that participate in the system. Once organized and trained, DMATs, NVRTs, DMORTs, and other NDMS elements would be locally- or regionally-based and could potentially respond more quickly than a resource located farther away. Further, the training and experience gained by the NDMS members can feed back into the local healthcare system to better prepare it for a disaster. Thus, the NDMS not only enhances Nationwide medical response capability, it also improves the ability of participating States and localities to respond to disasters within their own jurisdictions and under their own authorities.

For more information, visit the NDMS website.