Center for Domestic Preparedness Offers Mobile Decontamination Training to Enhance Preparedness

Ten hospitals in Northeast Tennessee are one step closer to establishing mobile decontamination teams thanks to training they recently completed at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), in Anniston, AL.

The 10 facilities sent 37 employees to the CDP’s Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents (HERT) course. The HERT course is designed to prepare hospitals to conduct safe and effective emergency medical response to a mass casualty incident.

The training these 37 employees received will be the basis for forming regional response teams that will be trained to provide mobile decontamination at each of the 10 hospitals in the healthcare region. The HERT course requires hospital employees—anyone on staff—to become familiar with decontamination procedures. These procedures not only protect the employees and patients, but also prevent a hospital from the cross-contamination that occurs when disaster survivors enter a hospital before decontamination.

The CDP training focuses on incident management, mass casualty response and emergency response to a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act. Healthcare courses are provided at the Noble Training Facility (NTF). The former U.S. Army hospital was converted into a training site for health and medical education in disasters and mass casualty events. It serves as the only hospital in the U.S. dedicated solely to preparing the healthcare, public health, and environmental health communities. CDP training for state, local, and tribal responders is fully funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

To learn more about the Center for Domestic Preparedness, visit https://cdp.dhs.gov or call 866/213-9553.