Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 2:00AM
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In This Issue Commander's Corner - Starting off with a bang! |
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:58AM David Lipin - Unit Commander
Hello everyone, and happy new year! We’ve got quite an active year planned, and we’re kicking it off in earnest. Plenty of details to read about in this edition!
March Meeting Visitor
To start with, we will have a guest from headquarters at our March 10th meeting. Tim Walton, NDMS Executive Officer, has asked to meet the team, give a presentation about the overall NDMS program, and to answer questions from the general membership. This is a great opportunity to get a headquarters perspective! I strongly encourage everyone to attend. We will slightly alter our regular format for the day to facilitate this, and all members and guests are welcome to attend.
2011 Distinguished Member of Year
Congratulations to Kathy Burgardt as our 2011 Distinguished Member of the Year! Last year, Kathy did a 
fantastic job moving our Plans Section forward, by taking a much more significant role in on-call rostering and our training program, as well as helping out with administrative tasks like payroll, minutes for meetings, etc. Not to mention the significant task of publishing The CA-6 Chronicles every month -- arm-twisting articles from contributors, editing, and posting by the first of each month. So please congratulate Kathy when you see her next!
Health & Fitness
2012 brings a renewed focus on health and fitness. CA-6 has always had a progressive attitude towards the health and safety of its team members, and many times has set an example for other teams and the national program to follow.
This year NDMS will be rolling out a new standard for health screening. It will come as no surprise to CA-6 members, because we’ve had a similar program in place for over a decade now. The new program will be an online submission called Responder Health Survey, where each individual can log onto the website and complete or update their form whenever their health status changes. Each team’s Medical Director staff will review the submissions and assign each person a Tier rating:
Tier 2 people require a medical review/approval to deploy (based on the specific deployment conditions at the time), and Tier 3 people cannot deploy. There is a regional and headquarters review and appeal process as well.
CA-6 is expecting to implement this process in the coming month or two. It will completely replace our existing program, so everyone will be required to complete the new online health form. Stay tuned for more on this.
Related to this, we are starting to implement a fitness program. It’s voluntary to start, but we anticipate that we will begin to see remediation requirements as health data comes in from the new overall health program. Just as fire and police departments across the country are slowly adopting fitness standards, we see this as not only inevitable in NDMS but also the right thing to do – we put ourselves in austere, sometimes extreme situations, and an injury or illness can jeopardize an individual, the team (who has to care for and take up the slack for an incapacitated individual), and our mission. So I strongly encourage you to start thinking about your health and fitness as an integral part of your commitment not only to NDMS but to your fellow teammates (and need I mention family and friends?).
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:56AM Annie Bustin - Operations Section Chief
The team has completed one full year of our new Training Matrix. It's really important for you to share your concerns, opinions and desires with the Ops Section or the Clinicians group so that we know if you really liked or disliked a class, or would like to see something else. We can't change this if we don't know about it. NDMS has added some new online classes. We'll be reviewing those and comparing them to our training matrix. If there is any repetition, we'll remove that class from the team matrix. That means we may have an opportunity for some new classes to fill in those holes. This is your chance to request classes on specific topics, so if you have something on your mind please tell one of us. These classes are for you and if you aren't attending one because you think it's irrelevant to your clinical practice on a deployment, then you're wasting a good Saturday coming to the training! So really, we want you to critique the classes and fill out the evaluation forms, go to the Clinicians group meetings before the general team meeting and see what they have coming up their agenda this year, or email Operations to plant your seed in our buzzing brains.
Also, we're going to start up regular Operations Section meetings like we used to. Since we're on top of February and there are many meetings already on the calendar, we'll start the Ops meetings in March. I'll post the date and time in the next newsletter, on the website, and in the DMAT CA-6 calendar. There are a lot of changes coming and you can be part of those changes by getting more involved with the team.
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:54AM Bonnie Atencio - Administration Section Chief
Hiring Changes
NDMS has implemented a new hiring process. There’s almost all good news with this: (1) The hiring freeze has been lifted; (2) NDMS screens all applicants for qualifications, so the process should run more smoothly, and decreases some of the “waiting to hear” time; and (3) we had some open positions posted for paramedics in January, and several people have let me know they’ve submitted their initial information.
The not-as-good news is that we’re only able to request three position types per month, so that will slow down the general hiring we’ve done in the past. Fortunately, we only have a few position types left to fill, so it shouldn’t take long to work through them.
Sometime in the first week of every month new positions will be posted on the Public Health Emergency website. The positions will remain posted for two weeks. When they’re posted, I will notify everyone who has contacted me for these positions via e-mail, put the posted positions in Hot News and on the Join Us page of our website, and will send an e-mail to all our members. That's the time to encourage your friends and co-workers to apply!
After the two-week posting period closes, HHS HR will screen the information received and will send us a list of those who qualify for the positions. That should take about a week. We’ll then arrange for interviews, reference checks, and the rest of our internal review process. The process will be the same as in the past after that.
We’ll be posting requests for Pharmacists in the next couple of months. Please ask your favorite Pharmacist (hospital or free-standing pharmacy) to come to the next meeting and see if we can get some fired up and enthusiastic about joining us.
Integrated Training Summit Registration
The ITS is in Nashville this May, and is now accepting registrations. If you intend to go you must do two things:
1. Register using the information below ASAP. Register soon as the conference hotel fills up fast. All NDMS personnel should use the NDMS NON-SUPPORTED EMPLOYEE contact type to get the reduced conference fee AND the reduced hotel rate.
2. Let Bonnie know. We must submit a list of attendees prior to the Summit in order for you to have USERRA coverage for the event. I can give you a letter for your employer if you need one.
NDMS non-supported employees who wish to attend must register using the official Summit website. Choose the contact type NDMS NON-SUPPORTED EMPLOYEE for the discounted registration fee of $200.00. (If you are not an NDMS employee, you may consider joining your local MRC as they also receive a discounted registration fee to attend the ITS.)
A discounted shuttle link and further transportation information can be found on the Summit website.
GovTrip
GovTrip recently generated some e-mails regarding unsubmitted vouchers. These were sent in error. If you received one, please disregard.
Team Meeting
Just a reminder that we have a team meeting/training in March. This will be a special meeting with a chance to ask our Executive Officer from NDMS, Tim Walton, those “why” questions that have been bugging you. Don’t miss it! We do have USERRA coverage for trainings. I can send you a letter for your employer indicating this, so work shouldn’t keep you away.
Change of Address, etc.
As always, let me know when you move, change phone numbers, banks, etc. There are things you and I both need to do. It’s how you get paid, so don’t delay.
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:52AM Joe Telles - Logistics Section Chief
Happy 2012! Hopefully all of you received a logistic-related gift for the Holidays! The Logs gear inspectors are looking forward to seeing all of your new high tech lite gear during the 2012 gear inspections. An important objective for the Logs Section in 2012 is to continue the team gear inspection program. Currently 51% of CA-6 team members have completed the process, so we still have 49% of the team to get through the inspection process in 2012. For those of you that still need to complete the process, pack those new logistic gifts in your gear bags so you can pass your next inspection! For those of you who already have all of your items, remember to go through your gear bags and replace perishable items such as food, personal medications, batteries, soaps, etc.
Another important thing to do periodically with your gear is to take it out and repack it. The process of repacking your bag familiarizes you with your gear. Repacking is also good for certain items like sleeping bags. Sleeping bags shouldn’t be in their stuff bags continually: it compresses the loft, and causes the bag to lose some of its warmth capability along with becoming uncomfortable because of less cushioning. On non-deployment months take your sleeping bag out of its rolled shape or compression bag and fluff it up, and put it full-length somewhere before you re-pack it again for deployment months. Sleeping pads that are rolled also need to be extended periodically and then rerolled in the opposite direction. As you go through your gear think of how you will use it on deployment.
Over the past year, I have encouraged a systems-approach concerning our deployment gear. One equipment item that is not required on our gear list but most of us have anyway is a cellphone or smartphone. Your cellphone can be a useful item prior and during deployment. You should have important DMAT phone numbers pre-programmed or listed in your phone such as our team phone numbers, administrative officer, team fax number, and your section leader. With smartphones the options are even more numerous, including compass, mapping, gps, translation, weather forecasts, news updates, medical protocols, camera, calculator, and as a journal. A phone can obviously be a useful item on deployment but can also cause a few problems, including inappropriate use and the logistics of keeping it charged. Another thing to think about is the possibility of your phone being damaged on deployment, especially when deployed in an austere environment. Our Communication Officer has written about iPhones in the article below, Apps for Deployment.
Looking back at 2011, the Logistics Section ended with a very busy December, completing all of its goals for the year. December began with a successful team holiday party, put together by the Logs and Plans Sections. The next weekend after the party the Logs Section continued its busy December by hosting a forklift training session attended by 14 team members. The all-day session was taught by Dave Lipin and Hunter at our old training facility located in Santa Clara. The class required the students to move numerous pallets loaded with 55-gallon trash cans, filled with water, around a coned obstacle course. Throughout the day only a couple of drops water spilled and hit the floor, needless to say all 14 students passed the class!
The Logs Section’s first scheduled Logs training day for 2012 will be March 24 in San Francisco to setup the Western Shelter tents, including the electrical and water systems. Time and exact location still to be determined. Other Logs training days for 2012 will include fitness, convoy driving, and electrical systems. The remaining Logs Section meetings are scheduled Apr 18, Jul 18, and Oct 17. The meetings will start at 1830 hrs and will be at The Englander, 101 Parrott St. in San Leandro.
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:50AM Kathy Burgardt - Plans Section Chief
Wow! This 21st century technology is pretty amazing. As a person who remembers when there were no copiers in the library and on-demand videos were movies on a reel threaded through a device that projected images on a wall (no sound for the home version), I find that the things we can do on the web are impressive. I’d like to tell you about two ways I’ve used the web for DMAT in the last month: Responder e-Learn, and my Monthly Status Report. [This is the point where you may pause and email your DMAT friends to let them know that they need to drop everything and read The CA-6 Chronicles.]
Responder e-Learn
Just when you thought you were caught up on the online training, new courses have been added. Information about content and objectives have been added to NC-3000, Responses Readiness and NC-5000, Operational Medicine, and can be found in the Training News article in this newsletter.
Those guys at Health and Human Services (HHS) have done a good job, in my opinion, of setting up the Responder e-Learn website. Not only are there learning modules that are easy to follow, but the information is useful. I sat down this weekend with the new Disaster Medical Information Suite (DMIS) modules. I have taken classes in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), but it has been a while since I had the opportunity to sit at a computer and review my skills. Here are the options for learning that I found. I could download a pdf file with a narrative that explained the basics of EMR and I could download an MP4 file and let the narrator read the pdf file to me while showing me pictures of the actual computer screen they were discussing. I strongly recommend using the visuals provided with the MP4 version. The EMR screens have been modified over the last two years, and they are colorful and easy to read. Since there will be differences between the EMR and the computer records you use in your work environment, it’s important to get familiar with those differences before you deploy. Another feature of the program is a Quick Guide, which is a pdf file with full color shots of the various EMR screens with notes explaining the various options. It’s a good cheat sheet that you can save to your smartphone or tablet. For the computer challenged, an MP4 file is a type of video. The website will tell you if you need to download QuickTime, which is a free Apple program. The link to Apple is provided on the Responder e-Learn website.
How to sign on to Responder e-Learn
Honestly, going to Responder e-Learn is so easy that even the most computer-challenged of us can do it! Go to the team website, log in, and look at the box on the right. Select Other Member Sites. (Since Responder e-Learn is training, you might decide to click the Training Requirements. It’s okay if you do because you will be directed to select Responder e-Learn by going to Other Member Sites.)
When you get to the home page for Responder e-Learn, you will find the Login in the upper right hand corner. Your Username and Password are the same and have been preset. There is a heading entitled Help/Tutorials in the blue band that runs across the page. There you will find one of those step-by-step animations to show you exactly how to log on.
What happens when you log on?
I suggest you approach this website as you might check a trauma patient: do a full-body scan to find what areas need your attention. Check out the headings in the blue bar: My Courses, My Communities, My Records, Search, Help/Tutorials. There are some interesting things there. For example, My Courses tell you the courses you can take. We’re part of NDMS. The My Records tab gives you information about what classes you have completed. One of the tricks with this program is that you don’t get credit for the class until you have completed the evaluation. Check out everything just to learn your way around. And, you might be interested in the National Medical Library on the Home Page. Never fear, you can contact Training if you have questions. (The tutorial is coming soon, but we accept questions from all interested or confused parties.)
Monthly Status Report
As many of us are finding out, the Monthly Status Report contains very helpful information. Using my report as an example, when I looked at the first page this month, I saw red, literally. It seems like only yesterday that I had submitted my Respiratory Survey Status, but there it was, in red text, that I needed to submit an update. The address for our website was right there, and even I could follow the instructions for filling out the form. When I tried to sign the form electronically, I got a message that I had not answered question 7. Actually, in the end, it turned out that I inadvertently skipped several questions, but the smart pdf file patiently told me which questions I needed to answer (the ones bordered in red, of course). The electronic signature magically appeared, and I didn’t have to print out anything, but could upload directly to the website. Warning: you have to know how to save a document and how to find that document after it is saved. You can contact Training if you have questions about how to use your computer to upload documents to our website.
February is On-call month
Be sure you have rechecked those gear bags. We go on 8 hours notice -- or less!
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:49AM Sam Bradley - Training Officer
Responder e-Learn New DMIS Courses
Here is more detailed information about the new courses being offered by HHS. Read the Plans Briefing article above to learn more about getting on the website and getting credit for the courses.
NC-3000 - Course Part 3 - Response Readiness
Course Structure (and Estimated Length)
NC 3010a - Disaster Medical Information Suite (DMIS) Overview (30 minutes)
NC 3020 - The EMR Application (60 minutes)
NC 3030 - Basic IT Set-up for NDMS EMR (60 minutes)
NC 3070 - EMR Pharmacy Training (75 minutes)
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, responders will be able to:
NC-5000 - Course Part 5 - Operational Medicine
Course Structure (and Estimated Length)
NC 5030 - NDMS Credentialing and Privileging (60 minutes)
NC 5040 - Mobilization Center Operations (30 minutes)
NC 5050 - Disaster Medical Information Suite/Electronic Medical Record (30 minutes)
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, responders will understand the:
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:48AM Joe Telles - Logistics Section Chief; Suzy Fitzgerald & Vivian Reyes - Assistant Medical Directors
The one thing that we are personally responsible for is our own physical fitness. On a deployment there is a high likelihood that we will be faced with the physical demands of working in uncontrolled environments. Temperatures and humidity may fluctuate, sleep deprivation is likely, moving patients and equipment will be strenuous, and walking unknown distances carrying personal and team gear will be taxing. In our preparation for deployment we must be honest with ourselves in assessing our own physical fitness and ability to perform physical work. At a minimum, each team member should have as a personal goal the ability to meet the national health standards set by the CDC in their national program Physical Activity for Everyone. In the near future, we expect to be required to meet physical fitness standards set by NDMS. If we prepare ourselves now it shouldn’t be a problem for us when these standards are implemented.
The CDC recommends that people older than 16, who are generally fit with no limiting medical disabilities, do the following:
Walking at a brisk pace is defined as a moderate-intensity level exercise. The CDC recommends a minimum of 10 minute increments to reach the weekly goal of 150 minutes of exercise. The CDC states: “We know 150 minutes each week sounds like a lot of time, but you don't have to do it all at once. Not only is it best to spread your activity out during the week, but you can break it up into smaller chunks of time during the day. As long as you're doing your activity at a moderate or vigorous effort for at least 10 minutes at a time.”
So, if you exercise 10 minutes three times during a 24-hour period, you will get the recommended amount of exercise for the day. If you do 30 minutes of exercise at least five days a week, you will get your recommended 150 minutes of exercise for the week. Your daily exercise could be a 20-minute walk at lunch and 10 minutes of physical work at home such as mowing the lawn or cleaning the garage.
Below are examples of activity intensity levels:
Moderate Intensity
Vigorous Intensity
The most valuable resource of our team is us - the people that make up our team! In preparation to improve our physical fitness together as a team, the Logistics Section and Medical Director's staff will work together under the direction of our Medical Director, Brian Blaisch, to proactively encourage team members to be physically active and exercise. Our ultimate goal will be to complete a two-mile walk in less than 32 minutes by the end of the year.
To get us off on a positive start we would like interested members to:
This is an opportunity for all of us to work together as a team and to be physically active and healthy! The health and safety of the members of DMAT CA-6 is a team priority. At this time, physical fitness testing is not required. However, the team leadership of CA-6 wants to be proactive to prepare our team for all future NDMS prerequisites and to, ultimately, have our team ready to deploy!
Print Article Comments Off Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:46AM Chris Burgardt - Communications Officer
I was asked to list some apps for smart phones that may be useful during a deployment. While the apps discussed in this article are specifically for products using the iOS (Apple) system, similar apps are available on other smart phones systems. Talking to other users of smart phones, I’ve discovered that many people are not familiar with some of the apps their device had installed when purchased, so I decided to start with some of the most basic apps. This month, I’ll touch on Find My Phone, Find My Friends, and Maps.
Find My Phone
A story: once upon a time, a firefighter left her iPhone on the bumper of her fire engine and proceeded to drive around town for hours. Fortunately, she had installed and configured the Find My Phone app, so she used another firefighter’s iPhone to locate the missing phone via GPS. She also locked the phone with a secret code and displayed a message on the screen asking that whoever found it call the fire department to arrange for it to be picked up. Unfortunately, nobody called, but the GPS showed that it was walking down the local railroad tracks. She drove the fire engine to where it showed her phone should be. There was nobody around and there was no phone she could see! Returning to her friend’s iPhone, she activated a pinging sound on her phone and discovered that it had been carefully placed on top of an 8-foot high wall.
The moral: every iPhone user should install and configure Find My Phone as soon as the phone is activated. Whether your phone is lost in a gear bag, your home, or on the street, this app is the fastest way to find it.
Find My Friends
Find My Friends is an app that shares your current location with other people you select. You may not want to use the Find My Friends app on a daily basis because it does cause extra battery drain and you may not wish to have just anyone tracking your phone’s movement. On the other hand, having it installed and available for use on a deployment may be extremely handy. Users can set up a temporary group to allow each other to see their location. This could be used on a deployment where the infrastructure is intact (SLC ’02, K2 ’05, DNC ’08). Accountability and efficiency could both be improved by being able to locate other team members more quickly.
Maps
Maps is installed by default on any iDevice. I highly suggest you practice using this app as often as possible until you have mastered it. It can provide you with driving, transit, or walking directions. Each of those options may provide more than one available route; you should know how to select the fastest or the shortest route.
Maps will also allow you to search for items near your location or another location. Again, practice prior to a deployment is key. You need to be able to identify an exit from an interstate 30 minutes away and find out what food will be available when you get to your destination
The biggest downside to Maps is that, unlike many stand-alone GPS units, the iDevice must have connectivity (Wi-fi or 3G) in order to get you information about routes or attractions. That means that you will have to plan ahead if, for instance, you are driving through Nevada on Interstate-80, and that you may be completely out of luck if you are travelling in an area where the infrastructure has been wiped out.
[Editor’s Note: We welcome information about technology that will be useful on DMAT deployments. Send your contributions to the CA-6 editor or to the Communications Officer.]
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