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Truth hurts – hard lessons from Australia's largest mass casualty exercise with contaminated patients
Author(s) -
Edwards Nicholas A,
Caldicott David GE,
Eliseo Tony,
Pearce Andrew
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
emergency medicine australasia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1742-6723
pISSN - 1742-6731
DOI - 10.1111/j.1742-6723.2006.00827.x
Subject(s) - medicine , contamination , medical emergency , emergency medicine , ecology , biology
In response to the increasing threat of a mass casualty incident involving chemical, biological or radiological agents, and concern over the preparedness of our hospital system to cope with patients from such an incident, we conducted the largest hospital‐based field exercise involving contaminated patients that has been held in Australia. In the present paper, we outline the background to, and methodology of, Exercise Supreme Truth, and the efforts made to increase its realism. We focus our discussion on three issues highlighted by the exercise, which we believe have enormous implications for the development of hospital chemical, biological or radiological plans and the likelihood of their success – hospital security, crowd control and decontamination.