DMAT and NMRT Team Information

DMAT:

A DMAT is a Disaster Medical Assistance Team. But before we go into what a DMAT is, lets first lets go back a few steps and see how DMAT’s came into existence.

The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) was created in the early 80’s as a system of hospitals that would receive overflow patients from the U.S. Military. It was thought that during a large war the military hospitals would not be able to accommodate the large number of casualties coming back from overseas, so the NDMS was formed to partner with private hospitals to assist in this need. This system grew and morphed into a large federal, state, local, and private partnership that has three parts:

The DMAT concept grew out of a concern that if these casualties where being flown into a region and the hospitals were having a difficult time making space, a DMAT could provide medical care until a hospital bed could be found. The DMAT’s then grew into a response team with increased capabilities.

The mission of a DMAT has expanded beyond it’s initial concept, although it still provides this all important service if needed. In fact in May of 2005 the Colorado DMAT participated in an exercise at Denver International Airport that practiced this exact scenario. Working with the NDMS Federal Coordinating Center at Fort Carson, the Wyoming Air National Guard, local responders and others, patients where flown in from Salt Lake City after a terrorist bomb was detonated there. It was a very valuable exercise for all involved as 3 months later the system was used after Hurricane Katrina. The Colorado DMAT was not available for this mission as it was already deployed to Houston, Texas. The Wyoming Air National Guard who were on their way to Iraq were diverted to New Orleans and flew patients out to other hospitals around the country.

Now the primary mission of a DMAT is that of a response team to assist local resources in providing advanced medical treatment in an austere environment. A DMAT is a 35 person team with doctors, nurses, PA’s, paramedics, EMT’s, Pharmacists, logistics specialists, and communication specialists. When deployed a DMAT is expected to make it “on their own” for up to three days. A team will carry enough food, water, and other supplies to last these 3 days.

The scope of the DMAT’s is ever expanding as well. Currently a DMAT can provide care including cardiac resuscitation, basic to mid level trauma care, basic clinic operations, and now providing radiological services with portable x-rays.

There are 4 Types of DMAT’s:
 NMRT:

The NMRT is a mass decontamination and medical care task force that is rapidly deployable anywhere in the United States or it’s territories. The NMRT-Central is one of three mass decontamination teams within NDMS and the only response team in the system that has the ability to be “wheels up” on commercial aircraft in four hours. Only a handful of military assets are faster than the NMRT. The NMRT-Central uses SATCO Air Containers to store its equipment (over 25 tons) which allows the entire cache to be loaded onto any type of airframe with cargo capabilities, this includes FedEx, UPS, and commercial carriers like United or Frontier. The NMRT-Central is now the only “all hazard” team within NDMS and deploys with 60 medical and non-medical specialists capable of decontaminating up to 1000 patients an hour or treating up to 200 patients a day in a medical setting.

The NMRT has been deployed to several high-profile events including: