Disaster Medical Assistance Team

Kang Hyun Lee

doi:10.7599/hmr.2015.35.3.152

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Lee: Disaster Medical Assistance Team

Review

Hanyang Medical Reviews 2015; 35(3): 152-156.

Published online: 20 August 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7599/hmr.2015.35.3.152

Disaster Medical Assistance Team

Kang Hyun Lee

Department of Emergency Medicine, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Korea.

Correspondence to: Kang Hyun Lee. Department of Emergency Medicine, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, 20 Ilsan-ro, Wonju 26426, Korea. Tel: +82-33-741-1612, Fax: +82-33-742-3030, ed119@yonsei.ac.kr

Received 6 July 2015 Revised 14 July 2015 Accepted 17 July 2015

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

A modern Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) is a group of professional and para-professional medical personnel organized to provide rapid-response medical care during a disaster situation. DMAT is a part of the disaster response system that acts as a trained, mobile, self-contained medical team in the acute phase of a disaster to provide necessary services such as triage, treatment, and transportation of injured patients in the devastated disaster area. The timeliness of DMAT response is critical to the administration of medical care and reduction of immediate mortality in disaster. While the number of members in a DMAT may vary between different nations. A small-scale DMAT is often composed of five to six people and there is good reason to consider this an effective unit for early disaster medical responses. An adequate structure and training system should be provided for Korean DMAT development in the near future.

Keywords: Disasters, Medical Assistance, Mass Casualty Incidents

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Structure and Activities of Disaster Medical Assistance Team

^*,†,‡Members of team in Korea and Japan include physicians, nurse or paramedic, logistical personnel. In addition to these members, U.S.A. teams have physician, physician assistants, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians.

^§Japan DMATs have 2 level (national and local).

^∥U.S. has advanced DMATs, that specialize in specific types such as hazardous material handling, decontamination, psychiatric, pediatric, burn etc.).

MLW, Ministry of Health and Welfare in South Korea; MHWH, Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Health in Japan; DHHS, Department of Health and Human Services; NDMS, National Disaster Medical System. Ref. 7 with permission from the Medical Association of Nippon Medical School.

Table 2

Training system of Disaster Medical Assistance Team

CBRNE, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosion.

Table 3

Summary of Disaster Medical Assistance Team deployments in Korea

N, number; Dr, doctor; EMT, emergency medical technician; Hr, hours; min, minutes; -, unknown.

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