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Experience from the Great East Japan Earthquake Response as the Basis for Revising the Japanese Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) Training Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Hideaki Anan ,
Osamu Akasaka ,
Hisayoshi Kondo ,
Shinichi Nakayama ,
Kazuma Morino ,
Masato Homma ,
Yuichi Koido  and
Yasuhiro Otomo
Hideaki Anan*
Affiliation:
Emergency Medical Center, Fujisawa City Hospital, Kanagawa, Japan
Osamu Akasaka
Affiliation:
Emergency Medical Center, Fujisawa City Hospital, Kanagawa, Japan
Hisayoshi Kondo
Affiliation:
Japan DMAT Secretariat, National Hospital Organization Disaster Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan
Shinichi Nakayama
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Hyogo Emergency Medical Center, Hyogo, Japan
Kazuma Morino
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Yamagata Prefectural Medical Center for Emergency, Yamagata, Japan
Masato Homma
Affiliation:
Division of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan
Yuichi Koido
Affiliation:
Japan DMAT Secretariat, National Hospital Organization Disaster Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan
Yasuhiro Otomo
Affiliation:
Department of Acute Critical Care and Disaster Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Hideaki Anan, MD, FJSIM, Emergency Medical Center, Fujisawa City Hospital, 2-6-1 Fujisawa, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to draft a new Japanese Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) training program based on the responses to the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Methods

Working group members of the Japan DMAT Investigative Commission, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, reviewed reports and academic papers on DMAT activities after the disaster and identified items in the current Japanese DMAT training program that should be changed. A new program was proposed that incorporates these changes.

Results

New topics that were identified to be added to the DMAT training program were hospital evacuation, preparations to receive DMATs at damaged hospitals, coordination when DMAT activities are prolonged, and safety management and communication when on board small helicopters. The use of wide-area transport was reviewed and changes were made to cover selection of various transport means including helicopter ambulances. Content related to confined space medicine was removed. The time spent on emergency medical information system (EMIS) practical training was increased. Redundant or similar content was combined and reorganized, and a revised DMAT training program that did not increase the overall training time was designed.

Conclusion

The revised DMAT training program will provide practical training better suited to the present circumstances in Japan. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2014;8:477-484)

Keywords

disaster medicineemergency medicineinformation systemsnatural disasterschemical hazard releasemedical transportation
Type
Brief Reports
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 8 , Issue 6 , December 2014 , pp. 477 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2014 

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References

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