{"pk":63040,"title":"Beirut Port Blast 2020: New Lessons Learned in Mass Casualty Incident Management in the Emergency Department ","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>Background: On August 4, 2020, Lebanon suffered its largest mass casualty incident (MCI) to date: the Beirut Port blast. Hospital emergency response to MCIs is particularly challenging in low- and middleincome countries, where emergency medical services are not well developed and where hospitals have to rapidly scale up capacity to receive large influxes of casualties. This article describes the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) response to the Beirut Port blast and outlines the lessons learned. </p>\n<p>Discussion: The Beirut Port blast reinforced the importance of proper preparedness and flexibility in managing an MCI. Effective elements of AUBMC's MCI plan included geographic-based activation criteria, along with use of Wi-Fi messaging systems for timely notification of disaster teams. Crowd control through planned facility closures allowed medical teams to focus on patient care. Pre-identified surge areas with prepared disaster cart deployment allowed the teams to scale up quickly. Several challenges were identified related to electronic medical records (EMRs), including patient registration, staff training on EMR disaster modules, and cumbersome EMR admission process workflows. Finally, this experience highlights the importance of psychological debriefs after MCIs. </p>\n<p>Conclusions: Hospital MCI preparedness plans can integrate several strategies that are effective in quickly scaling up capacity to respond to large MCIs. These are especially necessary in countries that lack coordinated prehospital systems </p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"emergency planning"},{"word":"emergency response"},{"word":"mass casuality incident"},{"word":"disaster planning"},{"word":"emergency department"},{"word":"mass casualty management"},{"word":"beirut blast"}],"section":"Original Research","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2cw9v5bq","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Eveline","middle_name":"","last_name":"Hitti","name_suffix":"MD, MBA","institution":"American University of Beirut Medical Center","department":"Department of Emergency Medicine","country":"Lebanon"},{"first_name":"Mohamad","middle_name":"Ali","last_name":"Cheaito","name_suffix":"MD","institution":"American University of Beirut Medical Center","department":"Department of Emergency Medicine","country":"Lebanon"},{"first_name":"Amin","middle_name":"Antoine","last_name":"Kazzi","name_suffix":"MD","institution":"American University of Beirut Medical Center","department":"Department of Emergency Medicine","country":"Lebanon"}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2024-01-15T09:44:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/uciem_medjem/article/63040/galley/48687/download/"}]}